The move is based on the decision Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Cabinet made at the time of its inauguration two months ago to reorganize the government's policy-related panels, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano said at a news conference.

"We scrutinized whether the panels were effectively functioning because there were those which existed but lay dormant," Hirano said.

Among the other panels abolished at the day's Cabinet meeting are the panel on global warming, the headquarters on promoting the decentralization of power to localities, the ministerial meeting on negotiations on normalizing ties with North Korea, and the ministerial meeting on promoting tourism.

Meanwhile, the government set up the same day a new panel on the decentralization of power and called it the meeting on strategies for local sovereignty.

Hirano stressed that while some panels may be abolished, Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan-led government will also set up new ones based on "new perspectives."

Those abolished Tuesday had been established under the Cabinet Office. The government plans to reorganize panels set up at other ministries and agencies, Hirano said.

Other panels abolished Tuesday at Cabinet ministers' discretion include the experts' panel on security and defense capabilities, the meeting on reforming the Defense Ministry and the panel on promoting social security reform.