Tag: Japan

Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Monday confirmed that it is aiming to pass four postal services deregulation bills through the House of Representatives next week. The LDP is assuming that reform-minded Prime Minister and LDP President Junichiro Koizumi will finish negotiating with the bills’ opponents within the LDP, who are backed by the state-run mail and postal insurance businesses, by July 3, LDP officials said.

The transport industry has raised a ruckus over the toll exemption for postal service vehicles delivering mail to a small island on the Tokyo Bay Aqualine highway, irked that the preferential treatment puts trucking companies at a disadvantage.

Several deliveries a day are made to shops and restaurants as well a mailbox on Umi-hotaru, a small artificial island that serves as a rest area connecting the highway’s bridge section from Kisarazu in Chiba Prefecture to its underwater tunnel section to Kawasaki. Vehicles carrying postal items to the island, however, are exempt under a special regulation from the toll.

With a set of bills to allow private companies to participate in the mail-delivery business becoming a focal point of Diet debate, the issue of whether postal services will continue to enjoy such preferential treatment for postal services even after the establishment of a public corporation is expected to draw attention.