An advisory panel to the prime minister examining the future of local governments has decided not to specify a desirable population level as a factor in deciding the scope of administrative powers for local authorities, according to panel sources.

The Local Government System Research Council made the decision despite calls from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and from within the council itself for a population of at least 10,000 to be required for municipal mergers.

The panel, headed by Ken Moroi, an adviser to Taiheiyo Cement Corp., apparently decided not to adopt the proposal because of opposition from sparsely populated towns and villages that fear it would force them to merge with larger neighbors.

An interim report to be released by the council later this month is likely to simply call for the need to clarify the targeted population for mergers that have been promoted under a special law due to expire in March 2005.

The panel is expected to continue discussing the issue until it submits a final report in November.

Whether an ideal size of a municipality's population should be indicated has become a central issue for the panel after its vice chairman, Masaru Nishio, called for the powers of local governments of areas with populations smaller than "city levels" to be trimmed.

An LDP project team, in an interim report in December, went further and proposed setting the population threshold for trimming local government powers at "less than 10,000."

Forty-eight percent of the 3,190 cities, towns and villages in Japan had populations of less than 10,000 as of April 1.