The House of Representatives approved government-sponsored bills Tuesday to privatize four expressway corporations with the backing of the ruling coalition.

Expressway privatization is a key item in the current Diet session, along with pension reform and war-contingency legislation.

The bills are aimed at regrouping the heavily indebted Japan Highway Public Corp., Metropolitan Expressway Public Corp., Hanshin Expressway Public Corp. and the Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Authority into six privatized entities and a separate asset-holding and debt-servicing administrative body in fiscal 2005.