FACTBOX-Five facts about Japan's Hirohisa Fujii

Sept 7 (Reuters) - Hirohisa Fujii, a former finance minister, is likely to be picked for the same post in the incoming Japanese government led by Prime minister-elect Yukio Hatoyama, the Nikkei business daily reported at the weekend.

Fujii, a veteran lawmaker with conservative roots, served as finance minister briefly in the early 1990s.

Here are key facts about Fujii:

- A graduate of the prestigious University of Tokyo, Fujii worked for the Finance Ministry for more than 20 years before become a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lawmaker in 1977.

- He broke away from the LDP in 1993 with other lawmakers to form an anti-LDP coalition government, calling for political reform. He served as finance minister in the coalition from 1993 to 1994.

- Now head of the Democratic Party's tax panel, Fujii has called for funding Japan's social welfare costs with sales tax revenue and for discussing over the next four years the issue of raising the tax. That contrasts with the view of Hatoyama, who has said there is no need to discuss the tax for that period.

- Fujii has said that Tokyo should not intervene in the foreign exchange markets unless currency rates swing abnormally and that he sees no need to alter Japan's dollar holdings in its $1 trillion foreign exchange reserves, the world's second biggest after China. [ID:nT235696]

- Through much of his political career, Fujii has worked closely with Ichiro Ozawa, the party's next secretary general who is sometimes seen as the real power behind the scenes in the party. (Reporting by Hideyuki Sano)