Japanese Princess Sayako would be married next spring with a Tokyo metropolitan government employee, Japanese media reported Sunday.

The official announcement will come out in late December in line with the wishes of the princess, Kyodo News quoted a senior official of the Imperial Household Agency as saying.

Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko had approved the marriage with 39-year-old Yoshiki Kuroda, the official said.

The 35-year-old princess will lose her royal status thereupon under imperial rules.

The engagement should have been announced earlier this month, but was delayed in consideration that the timing was not proper because of a series of disasters like typhoons and earthquakes, the reports said.

Princess Sayako and Kuroda both graduated from the Gakushuin University in Tokyo. As a classmate and close friend of her brother Prince Akishino, Kuroda knew the princess from childhood, the Asahi Shimbun said.

Since graduating from the Japanese Language and Literature Department of the university in 1992, Princess Sayako has been working as a research assistant at the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology, and later became a researcher of the institute, according to the agency.

She conducts surveys of the birds in royal residencies, and once contributed an article on kingfishers to the Animals of Japan Encyclopedia.

The princess is also fond of training guide dogs and dancing Japanese dance.

After graduating from the university's faculty of law in 1988, Kuroda joined the then Mitsui Bank, one of the predecessors of the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.

In 1997, he joined the Tokyo metropolitan government and currently works with its construction department.