Japan Govt may keep a stake in postal agency until 2017

Japan’s government said it may keep a stake in state-owned Japan Post, which holds about a fifth of the nation’s household financial assets, for 10 years after a planned sale in 2007.

The full privatisation of Japan Post, the biggest buyer of Japanese government bonds, may take until 2017, the Council on Economic Fiscal Policy said in a release. The government body, which is chaired by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, will release a policy paper on Japan Post’s privatisation this month, with a more detailed plan for the sale promised for later this year.

“We need to continue discussion on the specifics, such as the business model and the structure,” Heizo Takenaka, Japan’s minister for economic and fiscal policy, said yesterday.

The sale of Japan Post is a major plank of Koizumi’s bid to trim public spending through the reform of state-owned enterprises. Freeing the postal service from state control may prompt it to offer a wider range of financial services that compete against those offered by insurers and other financial firms in Japan.

The postal service has about 60 percent more branches than the combined network of outlets operated by the nation’s banks. Japan Post, which manages about 208 trillion yen (USD1.97 trillion) of saving deposits and 124 trillion yen worth of insurance policies, holds about 110 trillion yen worth of government bonds.