Olympics: Japan government backs Tokyo's 2020 bid

Japan's government has officially endorsed Tokyo's bid to host the 2020 Summer Olympics, saying the event would symbolise recovery from a devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck this year.

The endorsement, which may be followed by the government's financial guarantee, came after both chambers of Japan's parliament passed resolutions supporting the bid.

Tokyo -- which hosted Asia's first Olympics in the summer of 1964 but lost out to Rio de Janeiro in the bid for the 2016 edition -- and five other candidate cities are due to submit their 2020 Games plans to the International Olympic Committee by February 25.

The other cities are Baku, Doha, Istanbul, Madrid and Rome. The IOC will vote on the host city in September 2013.

"Hosting the Olympics will have a great significance in promoting international friendship and sports. It will also show our recovery from the Great East Japan earthquake," said culture and sports minister Masaharu Nakagawa.

"We will seize on every diplomatic opportunity to push the bid forward."

About 20,000 people were killed in the twin disasters in March, which also triggered a nuclear crisis at a power plant on the country's northeast coast.

"We are greatly encouraged," said Japanese Olympic Committee president Tsunekazu Takeda, who chairs the Tokyo bid committee, of the government's stamp of approval. "It will send a big message to the IOC."

In endorsing the bid, the government said that the Olympics, if hosted by Tokyo, should be "austere" and the national government would cover expenses only when they are essential in view of fiscal constraints, according to local media.