Panel eyes new body to run Japan's 3 postal services

The committee charged with setting up Japan’s new postal corporation, which will take over the Postal Services Agency’s three areas of operation in April, wants the new body to continue to offer its three core businesses nationwide, it was learned Wednesday.

In a draft medium-term management plan for the new organization obtained by Jiji Press, the committee calls for the new corporation to maintain independent accounting for each of the three mainstay services–mail, savings and insurance–and to disclose information on management, while retaining the postal service network.

It also calls for review in prices and products in the postal business along with service improvements like an expansion in overnight delivery areas. How to integrate risk management mechanisms in the savings and insurance operations would be among other issues to be tackled, according to the plan.

The plan, written by the secretariat for the committee, will be presented to a committee meeting next Monday, sources familiar with the matter said.

The committee, led by Hiroshi Okuda, chairman of the Japan Business Federation, comprises 14 members, including Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd. Chairman Masaharu Ikuta, who is to head the new public postal corporation.

The committee will meet once or twice a month until the end of March 2003.