Inside Report (4)

While the world looks longingly at -Japanese industries, Japan is looking for - and finding - younger chief executives to lead them to new successes. A recent survey by Wako Economic -Research Institute showed that about 13 percent of all companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange changed presidents in the first half of this year. The average age of the new head men was 59.5 years, compared to the 68.3 year average of those they replaced. The number of presidential replacements in the six-month period was more than all the top-job changes made in Japan in 1980.

Most new Japanese presidents had engineering or technical sciences backgrounds, an attribute that industrial analysts there say will be important to Japan's ongoing economic progress.