Press Conference by Taro Aso, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, and Minister of State for Financial Services

(Excerpt)

(Friday, September 11, 2015, 9:16 am to 9:36 am)

[Questions and answers:]

Q.

Yesterday, the Tokyo Stock Exchange approved the listings of the three postal companies. Please tell us why these three postal companies should be listed.

A.

The privatization of the three postal companies has been subject to debate for a long time, and we have decided to go through with it. At present, the shareholder of holding company is the national government, and it has been decided that the proceeds obtained from the sale of the shares will be allocated to disaster-hit areas such as Tohoku. In that sense, allocating the proceeds obtained from privatization to the victims of disasters is of great significance. Being privatized makes a company think about various new jobs it can perform, new businesses it can go into, and so on. It makes it want to try different things. State-run enterprises that were privatized in the past, such as Japanese National Railway and Japan Tobacco, have achieved success with some things and failed with other things. But the latter carried on selling cigarettes, and turned out OK. If, in the same way, these postal companies try certain businesses and do the same things as private-sector companies, I think that will be quite significant.

Q.

On the same subject, Minister, please tell us whether you think that the sale of the shares in Japan Post Bank is likely to accelerate the realignment of regional banks.

A.

The upcoming listing of Japan Post Bank will not have any direct bearing on the realignment of regional banks. Regional banks are likely to realign due to changes in Japan’s demographic structure, differences in population between different regions, and so on. Those will be the most important factors. In fact, what’s interesting about the current spate of regional-bank mergers, which are involving not just regional banks but also second-tier regional banks, and credit unions, and so on, is that the management teams of the banks are deciding to merge with others, and some of them are changing their names, while others are keeping their names.

Site Map

top of page