Tokyo to allow public postal corp to close or merge post offices

2 articles:
1. The Japanese postal ministry has drawn up a blueprint
which will transfer many powers held by parliament to a public corporation
which will take over postal operations in 2003, a news report said Tuesday.

These powers include closing, merging and opening post offices and buying
and selling property. These currently require the approval of the Diet
(parliament), the Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper said.

The ministry is also considering requiring the public corporation to pay
local taxes, which the postal system is presently exempt from, the business
daily said.

The public corporation will take over mail, postal savings and postal life
insurance operations from the postal ministry in 2003.

The postal ministry declined to comment on the report, saying that the
matter was still under discussion.

"Transferring postal operations to the public postal corporation has been
under discussion for some time. The minister (Toranosuke Katayama) is going to
form a study group to discuss the details of the issue," said a postal
ministry spokesman.

"The panel will be formed by the end of August and they will come up with
an interim report in December," he said. A final report would be submitted to
Katayama next May.

However, the report said the panel would try to ensure the power to open or
close post office branches would be included in legislation covering the
public postal corporation, due to be submitted to parliament early next year,
the Nihon Keizai said.

Under the new framework, the corporation would be permitted to sell off
large, under-utilized post offices to finance new networks of smaller branches
in areas such as busy shopping districts, it said.

The ministry's basic goal was to fix the postal system's loss-making mail
operations by improving management and opening the way for fair competition
with the private sector.

The plan also calls for some safeguards against post office closures in
underpopulated areas to maintain a universal postal service, the report said.

The postal ministry also planned to use business benchmarks, such as return
on assets, to gauge performance of the public corporations. It would give the
regulatory body the authority to order revisions in the corporation's business
plans if it was unable to meet performance targets, the Nihon Keizai said.

Last month, Katayama vowed the state-run post service would become
profitable after three years in the red.

The Postal Services Agency's loss for the year to March totalled 10 billion
yen (80 million dollars), a marked improvement from a loss of 55.3 billion yen
in the previous year.

The agency forecast a loss of 30.3 billion yen for the year to March 2002.

hih/ja/broAFP ENGLISH, 07th August 2001

2. The Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications plans to empower a new public corporation slated to take over the state-run postal services in 2003 to freely close or merge post offices, ministry officials said Tuesday.

The ministry also plans to urge the new entity to improve profitability and management efficiency by altering pay structures to reflect employees' job performance and by inviting private-sector personnel to its management.

A ministry study panel on the planned public corporation, which is to take over the mail, postal savings and insurance operations, is expected to hold its first meeting Aug. 30 to work out details on operations for the planned entity.

The panel aims to issue an interim report by the end of the year so that the ministry can prepare related bills for submission to an ordinary session of the Diet next year, the officials said.

Under the current rules, the ministry is required to submit budgetary requests to obtain necessary funds to set up new post offices, for example.

But the ministry wants to give the new entity the latitude to make independent management decisions under its own accounting system, the officials said.

By allowing greater managerial discretion, the ministry hopes the new entity will be able to turn around the loss-making postal services through such means as replacing unprofitable post offices with new ones in such strategic locations as shopping malls, they said.

KYODO NEWS INTERNATIONAL, 06th August 2001