TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's selection of a new central bank governor is likely to intensify after an upper house election in July and could determine how quickly the country will follow global counterparts in withdrawing monetary stimulus.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will decide from a short-list, usually crafted by financial bureaucrats, a successor to Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda whose second five-year term ends in April next year.

The two deputy governor posts, currently filled by career central banker Masayoshi Amamiya and academic Masazumi Wakatabe, will also open up in March.

Below are possible candidates for the post:

MASAYOSHI AMAMIYA - VERY STRONG CONTENDER FOR GOVERNOR

Currently deputy governor, Amamiya has spent most of his career at the central bank drafting monetary policy ideas and is nick-named "Mr. BOJ" for masterminding many of the bank's unconventional monetary easing ideas.

He played a key role in drafting Kuroda's huge asset-buying programme in 2013 and consistently called for keeping ultra-low interest rates.

An avid fan of classical music, Amamiya is known for his deep contacts with lawmakers and bureaucrats that help him read which way the political wind is blowing in steering policy.

HIROSHI NAKASO - VERY STRONG CONTENDER FOR GOVERNOR

A career central banker who served as deputy governor until 2018, Nakaso played a key role in navigating an exit from the BOJ's first spell of quantitative easing in 2006.

With long experience overseeing the BOJ's market operations and international affairs, Nakaso has repeatedly warned of the drawbacks of prolonged monetary easing such as the distortion its huge presence could create in bond and money markets.

MASATSUGU ASAKAWA - STRONG CONTENDER FOR GOVERNOR

Like Kuroda, Asakawa moved up the ranks at the finance ministry and became Japan's top financial diplomat in 2015, a job he kept for four years during which he battled a strong yen and engaged in tough negotiations with then U.S. President Donald Trump's administration.

After retiring from the ministry, he became president of the Asian Development Bank in 2020 - a job Kuroda also took before becoming BOJ governor.

In his book, Asakawa praised Kuroda's stimulus programme as a right move to beat deflation. He also said yen declines would be harder to stop than yen rises via currency intervention, because the amount of foreign currencies Japan can sell to prop up the yen would be limited to the size of its foreign reserves.

DARK HORSE CANDIDATES

Traditionally, the BOJ and the finance ministry take turns filling the central bank governor post, holding the post for only a single five-year term. That broke when Kuroda was appointed in 2018 to serve a second five-year term.