All 3 Japan Post divisions likely to see profits in FY 2003

Japan Post is likely to register profits in all of its three major business fields — mail delivery, postal savings and postal insurance — in fiscal 2003 to March 31 this year, its president said Wednesday.

Masaharu Ikuta told a news conference, “We want to secure even greater business results in fiscal 2004 and thereafter.”

Among the three divisions, profits in the postal savings division are expected to total 2 trillion yen, Japan Post officials said.

They attributed the prospective sum to buoyant returns from investments in financial products that carry interest rates for one year or longer thanks to mild rises in such rates.

The mail-delivery operations will likely return to the black in the wake of the previous year’s poor performance. Gains from the division are likely to exceed the 10 billion yen line, they said.

The prospective revival of profitability in the division would testify to the success of Ikuta’s efforts to cut expenses and provide greater services for post office users.

Gains from the postal insurance division are likely to amount to several tens of billions of yen, the officials said.

In addition, Ikuta said Japan Post will unify the current two separate sections in charge of administering its postal savings and insurance operations into a comprehensive financial services division as of April 1.

Within the new division, Japan Post will set up a committee to examine ways of offering better customer service, he said. It will also introduce an executive officer system in a bid to speed up the management’s decision-making process.

Japan Post, a public corporation, was inaugurated April 1 last year by taking over the three main operations from the governmental Postal Services Agency.