The transport minister and the administrative reform minister agreed Wednesday to carve up the heavily indebted Japan Highway Public Corp. after it is privatized in fiscal 2005, government officials said.
Nobuteru Ishihara, minister of land, infrastructure and transport, and Kazuyoshi Kaneko, state minister in charge of administrative and regulatory reforms, confirmed that the privatized entity should pay back its debts within 50 years, the officials said.
The ministers also agreed during their meeting that the entity's management autonomy must be respected, they said.
But while Ishihara wants the privatized entity to re-evaluate plans to complete 2,100 km of expressways currently under construction, Kaneko said he wants to see all of the highways completed, they said.
On Friday, the Liberal Democratic Party adopted a plan calling for the completion of a 9,342-km expressway network without delay.