Year: 2005

The failure of the Japanese government’s postal system reform drive this week was a reminder of the difficulties of tinkering with a state service embedded in the life of a nation. But officials in China dismiss the idea that Tokyo’s troubles hold lessons as they embark on a long-awaited campaign to shake up their sprawling postal system with its tens of thousands of offices and quarter of a million employees. “We have not paid any attention to the matter (of Japanese postal privatisation),” says an official of the State Post Bureau, better known as China Post. “There shouldn’t be any association.” Beijing has reason not to allow any distraction from its plans, announced last month after years of internal debate. While other arms of the government have modernised, China Post has remained an opaque and bureaucratic hybrid combining the roles of regulator, mail deliverer and one of the country’s biggest financial institutions.

The State Postal Bureau (China Post) is progressing with its scheme to merge its two sub-businesses, the express mail service (EMS) and China Post Logistics Co Ltd. “The merger is still in the preparatory stage, and we are considering how to restructure the businesses and the personnel involved,” a spokesman for China Post Logistics, who declined to be named, told China Daily yesterday. The planned merger was announced at the end of last year. The spokesman refused to comment on when the merger would be completed, but the Beijing Morning Post reported that substantial moves will be taken by the year’s end.