Japan Post’s Takenaka talks postal privatisation with Deutsche Post chief
Japan’s economic and fiscal policy minister Heizo Takenaka met with Deutsche Post AG President and Chief Executive Officer Klaus Zumwinkel to discuss Germany’s experience in postal privatisation as Japan seeks to privatize its own postal service in 2007.
At a press conference after the meeting in Bonn, Takenaka said he asked Zumwinkel about how Germany balanced efficiency with uniform postal services nationwide.
“I felt it was important to win the support of the public that privatization will improve the quality of postal services,” Takenaka said.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has pledged to privatize the nation’s postal services in April 2007, now provided by Japan Post, a public corporation created in April 2003 to take over the Postal Services Agency’s mail, postal savings and life insurance services.
Asked about the direction of postal privatization, Takenaka said that authorities must discuss how to integrate each of the three functions of postal services — mail, telecommunication and postal savings — into the market economy.
Deutsche Post, launched in 1990 to take over the mail sector of the three postal services run by the government, is known by many a success story of postal privatization. In 1995 it was turned into a special company wholly owned by the government, five years before listing its shares for complete privatization.
The Japanese government plans to draw up a government blueprint for postal privatization this fall based on an interim report by the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy that discussed several options for privatization.
Takenaka, who doubles financial services minister, also plans to meet in Sweden with Lars Heikensten, governor of the Central Bank of Sweden, to learn more about Sweden’s experience in revitalizing the financial system, which is another key issue facing Japan this year as it moves to reform its economy.
Takenaka will also meet with Swedish Finance Minister Bosse Ringholm and Gunnar Lund, minister in charge of international economic affairs and financial markets, to discuss reforms in state finances and the social welfare system.
