Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Cabinet on Tuesday endorsed the remaining two bills of a set of four on postal services deregulation and plans to submit both to the Diet.
On April 26, the Cabinet endorsed and submitted the other two bills, featuring fundamental reform measures for postal service-related operations, effectively steamrolling opposition from heavyweights in Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
The package of four bills is designed to allow private firms to offer mail services and establish a new public corporation that will take over the existing postal services -- mail, postal savings and "kampo" life insurance -- from the government in 2003.