The Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) will encourage its member corporations to make political donations in accordance with the size of their membership fees to the group, Keidanren sources said Wednesday.
The nation's most powerful business lobby is expected to formalize the plan in December in the hope of halting a decline in political donations by member companies, the sources said.
Corporate members of Nippon Keidanren made a total of 1.7 billion yen in political donations in calendar 2002. The lobby meanwhile received 4 billion yen in membership fees in fiscal 2002.
Nippon Keidanren classifies criteria for its membership dues into 25 groups, based on companies' net assets and adjusted by sales and other corporate data.
A company whose net assets are less than 10 billion yen, for example, is required to pay annual fees of between 500,000 yen and 2 million yen, depending on its business scale.
A company with 300 billion yen or more in net assets is charged a minimum of 10 million yen.