Japanese gov't to allow mail posted at convenience stores:

The government is finalizing a plan to allow people to post mail at convenience stores and delivery companies’ outlets in a bid to encourage new entrants into the mail business, now effectively monopolized by the public Japan Post, the Asahi Shimbun reported Saturday.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is reportedly examining a plan to abolish a rule under the mail service laws that says mail can only be accepted at postboxes, and another rule that prevents new entrants from access to Japan Post’s mail service networks.

The changes will remove a major hurdle for entering the mail service business — setting up some 100,000 postboxes across Japan — for any newcomers when the business is opened to private competitors in 2007, the daily said.

Large delivery service operators such as Nippon Express Co. and Yamato Transport Corp. have hundreds of thousands of directly operated or tie-up service posts across the nation. In areas they cannot immediately cover, they can make a contract with Japan Post to use a part of its mail service networks, it said.

Japan plans to break up Japan Post into four stock companies operating under a holding firm in October 2007 in a 10-year privatization process.