Koizumi to name ex-farm bureaucrat as adviser on post privatization

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has said he will appoint former senior agriculture bureaucrat Yoshiaki Watanabe as his adviser on privatizing Japan Post so the project gathers momentum toward the planned completion in 2007.

Watanabe, a former vice minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, will concurrently serve as the head of a preparatory office for the privatization project. The office will formally be set up at the Cabinet Secretariat next month, Koizumi told a press conference.

Full privatization of mail delivery, postal savings and “kampo” life insurance is one of the core projects under Koizumi’s reform initiative.

Koizumi said he wants Watanabe to lead the office because it would enable all relevant parties to be involved in the project “without sticking to sectionalism among each governmental body.” The issue falls under the jurisdiction of two ministries — the Finance Ministry and the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications.

The three postal services were run by the state before Japan Post, a public corporation, was established last April to take over them.