A key postal ministry official on Monday brushed aside calls by a senior ruling party lawmaker that the government use postal savings and insurance funds to prop up the slumping stock market.

Masaki Nishimura, vice minister of public management, home affairs, posts and telecommunications, told a news conference it is "unthinkable" that postal funds be used for any purpose that does not benefit users.

He was responding to reports that Hiromu Nonaka, former Liberal Democratic Party secretary general, said Friday that the government, as part of a rescue package for the moribund stock market, should directly buy about 100 trillion yen worth of shares by using postal savings and insurance funds.

"The primary objective of managing postal savings and insurance funds is to benefit the users of these services," Nishimura said. "It's unthinkable for us to use them for a stock market bailout that is not related to" that objective.

Nishimura said Japan Post, a public postal corporation to be inaugurated Tuesday, will invest such funds in the stock market through trust banks and has no plans for direct investment in stocks or foreign bonds.

Japan Post will take over mail delivery, postal savings and "kampo" life insurance now run by the government's Postal Services Agency.

On Monday, the final day of fiscal 2002, share prices in Tokyo tumbled, with the 225-issue Nikkei average falling 307.45 points to close at 7,972.71, its lowest finish since March 18.

It was the lowest close to the final trading day of a fiscal year since the index ended at 7,260.48 on March 31, 1982.