Japan's main ruling Liberal Democratic Party has approved an interim report on political reform. It calls for revamping intraparty factions into true policy groups that will be prohibited from holding fundraising parties and will not exert influence on personnel matters.

The LDP's General Council endorsed a party taskforce's interim report at an extraordinary meeting on Thursday. Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, who heads the taskforce, attended the meeting.

The report states that the party will conduct serious soul-searching over an off-the-book fund scandal embroiling some factions and offer a deep apology to the people.

It also says it plans to draw a conclusion on political responsibility for the issue and on how those involved should clearly fulfill their accountability.

To enhance the transparency of political fund flows, the report proposes mandated external auditing of factions' fund reports. It also calls for revising party rules to punish lawmakers if factions' chief treasurers are arrested or indicted.

The report says payments for fundraising parties of individual lawmakers should be made by bank transfer and fund reports for these events should be submitted online.

The taskforce says the LDP will have serious discussions with other parties to swiftly carry out revisions of the political funds control law to make such funding more transparent.

The interim report says that for the current factions to be transformed into true policy study groups, they must no longer exert influence on money matters and filling Cabinet and other posts.

As specific measures to achieve the goal, the report says factions should be prohibited from holding fundraising parties and providing money to member lawmakers twice a year to support their political activities.

It says factions should not try to influence Cabinet or party post appointments or negotiate such matters.

If any irregularities on political funds and other issues involving factions come to light, it says the party should look into the matter and could call for their dissolution or suspension of activities for a certain period.

Kishida told the meeting that he will spearhead the effort to put the interim report's proposals into practice as a first step.

He said there will be no end to political reform, and discussions must continue to restore the people's trust in politics and the LDP.