Koizumi has been under pressure to change his economic team to deal with Japan's struggling economy and bad-debt ridden banking sector.

Koizumi said after meeting with officials of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that he would conduct a reshuffle on September 30 aimed at facilitating progress on reforms.

Asked by reporters if he planned to pick people who were intent on conducting reforms, he said simply: "Of course".

On the number of cabinet posts he planned to change, he said he'd decide on September 30.

Kyodo news agency, quoting political sources, said Koizumi and senior officials of the LDP had agreed to retain Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa and Economics Minister Heizo Takenaka.

There was no word on the fate of Financial Services Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa, whose opposition to the use of public funds to shore up banks has been criticised by many politicians and economists as hampering efforts to clean up the bad loan mess.

Yanagisawa's departure would be seen as positive by many in the financial markets.

Yanagisawa repeated his view on Friday that there was no need to inject public funds into banks at present.

He also added that a media report claiming that the government's Resolution and Collection Corp (RCC) planned to buy banks' bad debts above the market price was groundless.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) newspaper said the government and the private sector would cover the losses expected under the plan and that an injection of public funds into the banks was inevitable.

(China Daily September 27, 2002)