Posts minister Taro Aso said Friday his ministry should not submit a bill for allowing Japan Post to sell investment trusts before the government compiles a final report on the entity's privatization next fall.
The plan for enabling investment trust sales at post offices "can win more public understanding if it comes after the proposed postal privatization takes shape," said Aso.
The government's Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, a key policymaking panel chaired by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, is set to finalize a plan next fall for privatizing Japan Post.
Aso's remarks indicate the ministry should submit the bill next fall or later, even though it has been seeking to submit it early next year so investment trusts sales can be launched by yearend.
If the bill is submitted next fall, as Aso is suggesting his ministry do, Japan Post could begin sales as early as 2005.
The posts ministry has been promoting the plan, saying it will increase individual investment in investment trusts. But the Financial Services Agency has sided with the banking industry in criticizing the plan as an effort to expand Japan Post's powerful financial operations.
Japan Post handles a huge amount of assets in the form of postal savings and "kampo" life insurance policies. Its financial business has been criticized by private-sector financial firms as having unfair government backing.