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.
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.
Japan’s mail and postal savings services in fiscal 2001 recorded profits for the first time in four years, the Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry said Friday.
Mail services, including door-to-door parcel delivery, registered profits of 8 billion yen in the year that ended March 31, against losses of 10 billion yen the previous year.
Revenues from the mail business dipped 1.6 percent to 2.21 trillion yen, while expenses dropped 2.3 percent to 2.19 trillion yen.
The House of Councillors on Wednesday began deliberating a set of bills for deregulating Japan‘s postal system, the day after they passed in the more powerful House of Representatives. The approval by the lower house virtually secured the legislation’s passage through the Diet, which may take place July 24 at the earliest. The current Diet session ends July 31.
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