Japan to boost staff at postal-services privatization body by late July

The government will add 15 people from the private sector to a preparatory office in charge of privatizing Japan’s postal services, boosting the total number of staff working in the office to 83 by late July, government officials said Friday.

The 15 will be sent from private entities, including East Japan Railway Co., Tokyo Electric Power Co., Nomura Institute of Capital Markets Research and the General Insurance Association of Japan, the officials said.

The government will assign them to the office’s divisions tasked with forging business plans for the privatization, the officials said, adding it wants their ideas and opinions based on their business experiences reflected in the privatization work.

Earlier in the day, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda unveiled details of additional personnel to be dispatched to the office, which was set up in April to draw up plans on how to privatize postal services and prepare relevant bills.

Working with the office, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy is scheduled to compile concrete plans for privatization as early as September after carrying out intensive discussions by the end of August.

Of the 15, two staffers are expected to come from firms belonging to the Japan Long Haul Trucking Association. The association’s members include rival firms to Japan Post such as Yamato Transport Co., according to the officials.

But it has not been determined at this point from which companies the two staffers, as well as two others expected from the Japanese Bankers Association, will be dispatched.

Firms which have decided to send their personnel to the preparatory office also include West Japan Railway Co., Kansai Electric Power Co., Norinchukin Research Institute Co., NLI Research Institute and Daiwa Institute of Research Ltd.

The Bank of Japan and Mitsubishi Corp. have already sent their personnel to the preparatory office.

The three postal services — mail delivery, postal savings and “kampo” life insurance — are currently handled by Japan Post, a public cooperation created in April 2003.

Japan Post took over postal services from the governmental Postal Services Agency. The government plans to privatize the entity in stages starting in 2007.