It looks as though Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is determined to push through postal privatization as the ultimate goal of his structural reform efforts.
It is generally agreed that government enterprise should not threaten private business and that privatization is desirable without qualification. Few doubt that the privatizations of Japanese National Railways and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corp. in the 1980s were successful.
When it was privatized, JNR was split into six regional passenger railway companies and a freight railway company, all of the JR group. Although residents of remote, sparsely populated areas were inconvenienced by the abolition of deficit-ridden lines, most Japanese greatly benefited from JNR's privatization, as it improved passenger service and cut train fares. High-speed Shinkansen trains, however, still charge high fares, with little competition from higher-cost airlines and inexpensive but slower buses.