Upper House begins debate
The House of Councillors on Wednesday began deliberating a set of bills for deregulating the nation’s postal system, the day after they passed in the more powerful House of Representatives.
The approval by the lower house virtually secured the legislation’s passage through the Diet, which may take place July 24 at the earliest. The current Diet session ends July 31.
At the day’s upper house plenary session, posts minister Toranosuke Katayama explained the four bills, designed to create a public corporation next April to take over the state-run postal services — mail delivery, postal savings and life insurance.
The legislation would also allow private firms to enter the huge mail delivery service market, although many high hurdles have been set for would-be entrants.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a long-time advocate of the privatization of postal services, told the upper house the legislation would “offer the public expanded choices and a variety of services, while maintaining the universal quality of the services.”
The government submitted the bills to the Diet in April, but opposing lawmakers, including some in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), waged a fierce campaign against the bills.
Based on a proposal by the ruling coalition, the lower house revised parts of the bill on the launch of the public corporation to allow the firm to set up subsidiaries.
The bill was also amended to stipulate that the corporation will have post offices set up “universally across the nation,” meaning that the current nationwide network of post offices will remain intact.
The phrase was added because some LDP lawmakers with vested interests in the postal system feared that reforming the system may lead to a reduced number of post offices.
