The Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) said Monday it will resume coordinating political donations from member companies and associations beginning next year.

"Businesses should support political parties with (more) funds so that they can put more effort into designing and carrying out effective measures to revive Japan's economy," Nippon Keidanren Chairman Hiroshi Okuda said.

By promoting political donations from its members, the nation's largest business group will increase its influence over politics, Okuda said.

Nippon Keidanren, comprising some 1,600 corporate and organizational members, will set up an in-house committee in June to discuss ways to promote the political donations.

The committee gives priority to political policies that support the business group, assesses each political party's activities on the policies, and sets up target donation amounts for the group as well as each member company, Nippon Keidanren officials said.

Although Nippon Keidanren will not force member companies to donate, the new mechanism will help increase corporate donations to political parties, Okuda said.

Nippon Keidanren's new donation mechanism can secure transparency of donations from businesses to political parties, he said.

The Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren), one of Nippon Keidanren's predecessor organizations, used to coordinate donations from member companies and associations and channel more than 10 billion yen each year to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

But the group stopped the practice in 1994, a year after the LDP lost its government helm for the first time in 38 years. Political donations from Nippon Keidanren member companies came to about 3 billion yen in 2002, a Nippon Keidanren official said.

Nippon Keidanren was created in May 2002 through the merger of Keidanren and the Japan Federation of Employers' Associations (Nikkeiren), a business lobby dealing with labor-management issues.