Bank of Japan veteran Yamaguchi approved as deputy chief

Japan's parliament today approved veteran central bank official Hirohide Yamaguchi as a deputy governor of the Bank of Japan, ending a long political stalemate as turmoil hit financial markets.     
Both houses of parliament voted to support Yamaguchi, with all opposition parties except the communists backing the nomination by conservative Prime Minister Taro Aso.     

Yamaguchi, 57, will formally take up the post on Monday, filling a vacancy since April in one of the two deputy governor posts at the central bank of the world's second largest economy.     

The parliamentary approval came as Japan's Nikkei stock index plunged seven percent with the yen soaring to 13-year highs against dollar, spawning fears about exporters' profits.     

Yamaguchi joined the Bank of Japan in 1974 and is now an executive director.

The opposition, which controls one house of parliament, voted down the previous candidate because he was a former government bureaucrat.     

The opposition had also rejected several candidates for top jobs at the BoJ, saying they were too close to the government to ensure the central bank's independence.     

In April, the opposition approved then deputy governor Masaaki Shirakawa as the new central bank chief, bringing an end to an embarrassing two-week vacancy in the top post during a global credit crunch.     

While the BoJ has independence in setting monetary policy, it has come under pressure in the past from the government to keep interest rates low and give the economy more time to recover from recessions in the 1990s.