Japan's Olympic minister Hashimoto is preferred candidate to succeed Mori -NHK

Japan's Olympic Minister Seiko Hashimoto has emerged as the preferred candidate to succeed Yoshiro Mori as president of the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee after he stepped down last week, public broadcaster NHK said.

The panel will ask Hashimoto if she wishes to take the position, NHK added.

"I am aware of the report, but the committee is an independent body that makes its own decision," the government's spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato, told a regular news conference.