Nobuteru Ishihara, state minister for administrative reform and deregulation, said Friday that Narita and Haneda airports, the two main gateways for the Tokyo metropolitan area, should be privatized and merged into one company.
"It would be desirable to turn Haneda and Narita into one company and privatize them," Ishihara said at a press conference in London.
The minister, who is currently touring several European capitals to study how public corporations are run in other countries, made the comment while speaking about the government's proposed reform agenda.
Ishihara is expected to unveil a blueprint by the end of September for a reform plan covering all Japanese public corporations. The plan is to be adopted at the end of this year.