Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. will try to boost earnings at its two regional carriers by 265 billion yen on a pretax basis next business year, partly through transfers of employees to lower-paid subsidiaries, NTT sources said Friday.

A total of 98,000 employees -- 39,000 from NTT East Corp. and 59,000 from NTT West Corp. -- will be asked to move to new subsidiaries to be set up around May, the sources said.

The transfers will push up the earnings of NTT East by 35 billion yen and that of NTT West by 65 billion yen for the 2002 business year, which starts April 1, they said.