TOKYO — Move over Toronto: Japan's major broadcast networks are nearing completion on plans to build the world's tallest tower in Tokyo, a Japanese newspaper reported Tuesday.

The tower - to be 600 metres tall - will be used for terrestrial digital broadcasting at a cost of some $420 million US, the national newspaper, Yomiuri, reported. It is scheduled for completion in 2011.

Officials from Japan's public broadcaster NHK and five Tokyo-based commercial broadcasting companies are involved in the project.

Kinji Terada, a spokesman of NHK, said officials are now "in a final stage of co-ordination" in picking the location for the tower in Tokyo's old entertainment area in Sumida ward.

The tallest free-standing structure in the world currently is the CN Tower in Toronto, which was built almost 30 years ago and soars just over 553 metres.