An adviser to Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Thursday suggested that it would be difficult to fully privatize Japan’s gigantic postal services.
A planned public postal corporation should eventually be transformed into an entity with part of its equity held by the government, Satoru Matsubara, a member of a panel on postal services advising Koizumi, said in an interview with Jiji Press.
Read MoreThe House of Councillors passed into law Wednesday a set of bills related to the establishment of a public postal corporation and entry of private companies into the mail-delivery business.
The bills cleared the upper house at a plenary session with the support of the ruling coalition, the Liberal Democratic Party, New Komeito and Hoshuto (New Conservative Party).
The laws require private companies entering the letter-delivery business to offer nationwide services; to complete delivery within three days; to set up a specified number of mailboxes; to offer delivery services at least six days a week, and to provide their service at the same cost regardless of destination within the nation.
Following the break-up with FedEx, Indian logistics major Blue Dart Express is scouting for new partnerships. The company is likely to tie up with a new company when the existing arrangement with FedEx expires on September 30, 2002.
According to Tulsi Mirchandaney, senior vice-president of marketing for Blue Dart, the alliances could be either an exclusive tie-up like the one it currently has with FedEx, or multilateral tie-ups.
He said discussions are currently on with several international players, but a final decision on the partner and the nature of the tie-up would be announced soon.
Traders in the country will now find it convenient to trade with one of the fastest-growing economies in the world through a new service of DHL world-wide Express.
DHL’s China First program picks up shipments from suppliers in China and delivers them directly to the importer anywhere in the world, said incoming country manager Mike Fitzpatrick.
China’s total import and export volume last year exceeded $400 billion. This gives China the seventh highest trade volume throughout the world, he said.
A series of bills that threaten to shake-up Japan’s postal delivery service are to be passed in a diluted form, to the frustration of many private firms keen to enter the country’s direct mail market.
The revised bills are the result of a compromise between Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
While the revised government bill will allow private firms to enter Japan’s state-run mail delivery market, the LDP’s revisions state that companies wishing to become mail service operators must both charge unified fees and collect and deliver mail everyday.
It also requires any private firm looking to deliver mail to submit a business plan to the government and await approval.
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