Japan Post eyes 1st overseas outlet in China

Japan Post plans to open liaison offices in Beijing and Shanghai this fall as its first overseas outlets in line with its strategy to promote overseas services, officials said.

The public postal service corporation will step up preparatory work if it wins approval from Chinese authorities through negotiations in March, they said.

To turn its money-losing mail service around, Japan Post plans to strengthen overseas operations this year.

“The main battleground” for the new strategy is “Asia, especially China,” Japan Post President Masaharu Ikuta has said.

Japan Post plans to station three officials each at the Beijing and Shanghai offices for negotiations with Chinese authorities in order to promote mail delivery between the two countries.

Japan Post was created in April 2003 as a public corporation, taking over the governmental Postal Services Agency’s mail delivery, postal savings and “kampo” life insurance services. The government plans to privatize the entity in 2007.

In the international mail delivery market, it lags far behind such major players as Deutsche Post of Germany and U.S. carrier Federal Express.