Japan should split the nation's ¥150 trillion in pension reserves into smaller funds and diversify what they are invested in, private-sector members of a government advisory panel said.

The fund should consider investing in assets including real estate and commodity futures, the panel's members said in a statement released Friday in Tokyo. Currently, more than half of the money is invested in government debt.

The group was expected to submit the recommendations to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's key economic panel Friday. The pension fund for one of the world's most rapidly aging societies may have lost money for the first time in five years in the year that ended March.