Japan’s economic and fiscal policy minister Heizo Takenaka met with Deutsche Post AG President and Chief Executive Officer Klaus Zumwinkel to discuss Germany’s experience in postal privatisation as Japan seeks to privatize its own postal service in 2007.
At a press conference after the meeting in Bonn, Takenaka said he asked Zumwinkel about how Germany balanced efficiency with uniform postal services nationwide.
Read MoreJapan Post is set to launch a service to deliver direct mail commissioned by Sagawa Express Co. and Nippon Express Co., the nation’s second- and third-largest couriers, by the March 31 end of the current fiscal year, officials at the postal corporation said.
Japan Post will submit an application with the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications in early February for launching the service, the officials said.
Under the plan, the corporation will deliver direct mail for Kyoto-based Sagawa Express and Tokyo-based Nippon Express at low rates.
Read MoreThe posts ministry will try to submit a bill to the Diet by the end of March to allow Japan Post to begin sales of investment trusts by the end of 2005, ministry officials said.
The Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry informed other ministries the same day of its plan to submit the bill during the upcoming Diet session to convene Jan. 19, the officials said.
But the actual submission of the bill could be delayed as the posts ministry needs to negotiate with the Financial Services Agency, which has sided with the banking industry in criticizing the plan as further enlarging Japan Post’s financial operations.
Read MoreThe state-run Japan Post will likely be transformed into a special joint-stock corporation in which the government would have a 100% stake, government sources said.
The planned corporation would operate subsidiaries to provide nationwide mail-delivery services and regionally-based postal savings and insurance services, according to the sources.
These ideas constitute a sketch of plans being contemplated as a result of the government’s ongoing study of how to privatize the three state-administered postal services–mail-delivery, postal savings and insurance services.
Read MoreJapan Post and its labor union have agreed to introduce a performance-based wage and personnel affairs system for its 270,000 employees, starting April 2004, officials at the government-backed postal service provider said. The new system, designed to reflect employees’ performances and abilities on wages and bonuses, is to motivate workers and improve services for customers so as to prop up the loss-making mail delivery business, they said.
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