Tag: Asia

An over-the-counter postal services company, to be created through the privatization of state-backed Japan Post, will operate post offices like convenience stores and will offer friendly services to local people, according to proposed government legislation made available to Kyodo News on Thursday.
Post offices will offer services on behalf of a mail delivery company, issue certificates for local governments and sell tickets for events.

Japan Post said Wednesday its mail delivery service posted a 56.2 billion yen net loss in the April-September period of fiscal 2004. Japan Post blamed the sector’s red ink on the growing number of people using e-mail instead of ordinary postal services. The public postal service entity was reporting its midterm results for the first time on a trial basis. Although it reduced personnel expenses, the shrinkage in the amount of conventional mail outweighed the effects of the cost cut, it said. When Japan Post closed its full-year books for the year to March 31, 2004, the mail segment returned to the black for the first time in two years.

The number of parcels Japan Post delivered between last April and early this month has reached a record-high 184.97 million, breaking the previous record set in fiscal 1970, the public postal service agency said Wednesday. The previous record was set in the 12-month period beginning April 1, 1970, according to Japan Post. The new all-time high was logged partly because Japan Post teamed up last November with major convenience store chain operator Lawson Inc. to provide the “Yu-Pack” door-to-door parcel delivery service. The growth in Japan Post’s parcel service could draw flak from its archrival parcel service provider, Yamato Transport Co., industry analysts say.