Tag: Asia

Senior aides to Junichiro Koizumi, Japan’s prime minister, have hinted that the timetable for postal privatisation could be allowed to slip, opening up the possibility of flexibility in talks with the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP), many of whose members vehemently oppose postal reform. Mr Koizumi has insisted until now that the post office should be split into four separate entities from 2007 to ensure that there are no cross-subsidies between the mail, insurance, savings and counter divisions. The prime minister has made privatisation of the post office, the biggest financial institution in the world, the centrepiece of his final two years in office, and has threatened to call a snap election if the LDP refuses to back his drive. A foretaste of the rocky time that Mr Koizumi may face during the next 150 days of the regular parliamentary session came yesterday when opposition members walked out of the Diet chamber in protest at his answers on postal privatisation. The chamber was thrown into confusion when members of the Democratic Party of Japan suddenly stood up and left, accusing Mr Koizumi of being vague in his replies to questions about postal reform.

The government has entered the final stage of negotiations on working out a system that will in principle not require universal service for parcel delivery after the privatization of the postal services in fiscal 2007, government officials said Saturday. The universal service will cover only ordinary mail items, including postcards, the officials said. In other countries, universal service is usually required for parcel delivery, but the government decided against this because the door-to-door parcel service in the private sector is highly developed. The current system requires Japan Post to submit to the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry a report on its parcel delivery fees before it raises them.