Canon Inc. President Fujio Mitarai is likely to be the next chairman of the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren), the nation's most powerful business lobby, sources said Saturday.
Keidanren will informally finalize the decision to give the post to Mitarai before the end of the year, the sources said, adding that the 70-year-old industrialist would formally take up his new position next May.
"We are making final arrangements in that direction," a business community leader said on condition of anonymity.