The government will not sell shares of East Japan Railway Co. out of its holdings in fiscal 1998, which ends March 31, Transport Minister Jiro Kawasaki said Tuesday.
The government, which currently owns 1.5 million JR East shares, apparently reckons lump-sum sales of the shareholdings would deteriorate the stock market's supply-demand situation.
Out of 4 million shares of JR East, 2.5 million were sold to the market in 1993. The remaining 1.5 million shares are currently in the possession of Japan Railway Construction Public Corp.
Kawasaki noted that the current stock market may not be strong enough to absorb the large amount of new shares. He also said the ministry hopes to release the shares to the market at a time when the stock can be priced as high as possible. The sales of JR stocks are to be spent on the repayment of about 28 trillion yen in debts left by the former Japanese National Railways.