Oct. 24 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush is expected to name White House economic adviser Ben Bernanke to succeed Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chairman, people familiar with the matter said. The president's spokesman said an announcement will be made at 1 p.m. Washington time.

Bernanke is chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers and a former Fed governor. He canceled meetings scheduled today in New York to remain in Washington.

``We'll have an announcement soon,'' Bush said after meeting with members of his Cabinet at the White House. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said later that the announcement was set for 1 p.m. from the Oval Office. He decline to confirm that Bernanke is Bush's choice.

``The person who he is announcing is someone who is highly qualified and someone who is very well respected,'' McClellan said.

Greenspan's non-renewable term ends Jan. 31 and the nomination of his successor is subject to Senate confirmation. Greenspan, 79, Fed chairman since 1987, maneuvered the economy through two stock-market collapses, in 1987 and 2000, and two recessions in 1990-91 and in 2001. The expansion in between was the longest in U.S. history.

In his current job, Bernanke, 51, serves as the president's chief economic adviser, a role Greenspan held two decades earlier. Bernanke, a former Princeton economist, took on the CEA chairmanship last June after spending almost three years as a Federal Reserve governor.

Wall Street has been betting on Bush naming Bernanke to the Fed chairmanship. In a survey of investors last month, he ranked No. 1 on the list of likely candidates, getting 38 percent of 104 votes. The second-closest candidate in the poll by Stone & McCarthy Research Associates, a Skillman, New Jersey, economics firm, was Harvard professor Martin Feldstein, who got 31 percent.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby said his panel would try to hold hearings and a vote on a Fed nomination before the end of the year.

``This is one of the most important appointments that the president of the United States will make, probably, in this term,'' Shelby, an Alabama Republican, said in an interview last week.

To contact the reporters on this story: Brendan Murray in Washington at brmurray@bloomberg.net; William Roberts in Washington at wroberts@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 24, 2005 12:24 EDT