Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi expressed his intention Tuesday to make it easier for companies to start postal services by letting them operate fewer public mailboxes than stipulated by law.
Japan's postal services are under the control of the state-backed Japan Post. The mail delivery law, enacted in 2003 to set rules for postal entry by private firms, requires new entrants to provide at least 100,000 public mailboxes nationwide.
That number represents about 60 percent of all the mailboxes covered by Japan Post.
The government "will create an environment to start the business as easily as possible," Koizumi told the Budget Committee of the House of Councilors. "There is no need to fix the number at 100,000." No private firms have launched postal services under the law.