Tag: Japan

The government promised the dominant Liberal Democratic Party on Thursday to incorporate a clause requiring that post offices be evenly situated nationwide when it draws up bills to privatize Japan’s postal system, party lawmakers said.

“We’d like to firmly ensure by law that post offices are situated so they can be used universally nationwide,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda was quoted as saying in a meeting with the party. It was the government’s first concession over the postal privatization policy, which many LDP lawmakers oppose.

An LDP participant in the meeting later said the party will continue to seek further concessions from the government on privatization issues.

The government will accept the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s demand in a meeting Thursday that post offices are legally required to be evenly situated nationwide even after privatisation, government sources said Wednesday.

The government’s first concession over its policy to privatise Japan’s postal system is apparently intended to move forward with the submissions of bills to legislate the policy during the ongoing Diet session through June.

The concession was agreed upon when the ministers in charge — Heizo Takenaka and Taro Aso — visited Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at his office Wednesday afternoon, the sources said.

The move came after the LDP warned Tuesday that it may freeze the ongoing negotiations with the government on the policy unless its key request is accepted.

Japan Post announced on Friday that of post offices nationwide, 14 per cent were in the red in fiscal 2003.

Shimane Prefecture had the highest share of post offices with losses, with 54.1 per cent in the red. Kochi and Hokkaido prefectures also had high shares of poorly performing post offices.

Areas with the smallest shares of post offices in the red were in prefectures surrounding Tokyo, including Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa. Only 0.3 per cent in Saitama and 1.3 per cent in Chiba were in the red.

The results show that post offices tend to perform better in areas of high population density.

This is the first time that Japan Post has announced results for individual offices.