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Privatizing postal system centerpiece of LDP races

Privatizing Japan's Post Office is a symbol of the progress of the country's reform effort, said Kaoru Yosano, chairman of the Policy Research Council of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

"Privatizing Japan's Post Office is a part of the structural reform that leads to other reforms," said Yosano in the Sunday Debate program on state-run NHK television. "We have the will and determination to pursue further reforms for Japan's future by sacrificing some of our party's support base."

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi called a lower house election for Sept. 11 after the upper house rejected legislation he sought to break up and sell Japan Post, the country's biggest savings bank. The LDP on Friday made the postal system's sale the centerpiece of its election manifesto.

Koizumi plans to turn Japan Post into a holding company with four units -- savings, insurance, mail delivery and a nationwide post office network -- in April 2007.

"We need to change the framework in which a quarter of the country's assets are held by the postal service," said Yoshihisa Inoue, policy chief of New Komeito, a partner in the political coalition the LDP leads.

"We'll put that money into the private sector, where market principles can reinvigorate the economy," he said.

Japan Post held a total of ?388 trillion (US$2.5 trillion) in assets in its postal, banking and insurance services as of March 31.
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