Japan PM names deputy Kan as new finance minister
Hirohisa Fujii
Hatoyama said Fujii's resignation was unavoidable due to exhaustion and high blood pressure  caused by months of hard work drawing up the national budget.
 "It's a matter of his health. It can't be helped " he told reporters  adding that Kan would also retain the post of deputy prime minister.
 "Finance Minister Fujii has been exhausted. The doctors' medical certificate said it is difficult for him to execute his official duty as a minister. I have no choice but to take the doctors' diagnosis seriously " Hatoyama said.
 Fujii was hospitalised on December 28 suffering from fatigue after months of wrangling over the national budget.
 The veteran politician was picked by Hatoyama in September to steer Asia's biggest economy out of its worst recession in decades  returning to a post he held briefly in the early 1990s.
 He is one of the few members of the cabinet with previous government experience and his departure is seen as a blow to Hatoyama's efforts to revive the world's number two economy  reeling from its worst downturn in decades.
Hatoyama said [TGT]'s resignation was unavoidable due to exhaustion and high blood pressure  caused by months of hard work drawing up the national budget.
 "It's a matter of [TGT] health. It can't be helped " [TGT] told reporters  adding that Kan would also retain the post of deputy prime minister.
 "Finance Minister Fujii has been exhausted. The doctors' medical certificate said it is difficult for him to execute his official duty as a minister. I have no choice but to take the doctors' diagnosis seriously " Hatoyama said.
 Fujii was hospitalised on December 28 suffering from fatigue after months of wrangling over the national budget.
 The veteran politician was picked by Hatoyama in September to steer Asia's biggest economy out of its worst recession in decades  returning to a post he held briefly in the early 1990s.
 He is one of the few members of the cabinet with previous government experience and his departure is seen as a blow to Hatoyama's efforts to revive the world's number two economy  reeling from its worst downturn in decades.