Japan to study allowing private delivery services to use mailboxes

The government is considering allowing private entrants into the mail delivery market to share about 180,000 mailboxes currently owned by post offices, the Nihon Keizai newspaper cited government sources as saying.

The post boxes are due to be taken over by a public postal corporation slated to be set up next April.

The government earlier considered requiring such firms to set up some 100,000 mailboxes on their own, but it concluded that deregulation is necessary to give companies incentive to enter the new market.

The government will incorporate the plan in a package of guidelines, which the Posts Ministry will compile after the mail law passes this Diet session, on the entry of private firms due to be compiled by the end of the current fiscal year, the sources said.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi gives top priority to postal-services privatization in his structural reform plan.

He was behind the submission of a bill to the Diet in April allowing private -sector entry into the mail delivery market, in defiance of opposition from inside the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Yamato Transport Co, once regarded as the most likely candidate to enter the mail market, later abandoned plans to enter the market, citing the overabundance of red tape involved.

This prompted the government to start examining ways to attract firms to the sector, including the sharing of mailboxes between the public and private firms.

Under the mailbox-sharing scheme, the government is considering allowing post-office staff to collect and sort all the mail put into shared mailboxes, dividing the items into those delivered by private firms and those delivered by the public company.

To make sorting easier, the government’s plan calls for requiring special seals to be attached to each item and for different envelopes to be used by public and private delivery firms.

People close to the prime minister expect the mailbox-sharing idea will encourage about two private firms to enter the market, the sources say.

“The idea is a step forward for private firms considering entering the market,” said a public relations official at Nippon Express Co.

Some LDP officials with close links to the postal service business are also positive about the idea, with one saying: “It will likely increase the opportunities of regional post offices being commissioned to collect and sort mail by private entrants, a development that in turn will help maintain the mail delivery network in provincial areas.”