New Japanese government could shelf postal privatisation plans
Japan’s new government may act this year to freeze the breakup and privatisation of Japan Post, Financial Services minister Shizuka Kamei said, reports Bloomberg. The article continues:
“We plan to submit a bill to an extraordinary session of parliament to freeze plans” for selling shares in units of the postal group, Kamei said in an interview on NHK television. A date for the session hasn’t been set.
The Democratic Party of Japan, which took power after its landslide August election victory, pledged to reverse Liberal Democratic Party plans to sell off the postal service and its bank, which holds 178 trillion yen ($2 trillion) of deposits.
Kamei said he also plans to submit legislation to revise Japan Post’s business structure to ensure services to people outside metropolitan areas as well as a competitive environment for private banks.
Named to the financial services portfolio after his People’s New Party aligned with the DPJ, Kamei, 72, split with former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi over the privatization in 2005, was denied an LDP endorsement in elections that year and quit the then-ruling party to form his own political group.
Legislation pushed through by Koizumi in 2005 broke the 138-year-old Japan Post into four units under a holding company and allowed for share sales as soon as next year.
