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Policy Brief 12-12
Japan Post: Anti-Reform Law Clouds Japan's Entry to the Trans-Pacific Partnership
by Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Peterson Institute for International Economics
and Julia Muir, Peterson Institute for International Economics
May 2012
In 2005, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pushed his landmark bill through the Japanese Diet, aimed at reforming Japan Post, the giant state-owned enterprise that provides postal services and houses two huge financial arms, Japan Post Bank and Japan Post Insurance. The bill envisaged substantial privatization by 2017. Subsequent Japanese governments have toyed with the idea of reversing the Koizumi law, but in January 2012, it still seemed possible that Diet members would preserve essential features of the Koizumi reforms. As it turned out, the opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)—putting current political advantage ahead of its past pro-reform stand—joined anti-reform forces in the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and the New Komeito Party. This alliance submitted the Bill to Partially Revise the Postal Privatization Law through the Diet on March 30, 2012. The anti-reform bill was passed by the Upper House on April 27, 2012, with only one absenting vote from the LDP, and became law. The revised law turns back the clock on the Koizumi reforms and will cloud Japan’s potential participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks.
View full document [pdf]
RELATED INTERVIEWS
RELATED LINKS
Policy Brief 12-2: Japan Post: Retreat or Advance? January 2012
Policy Brief 10-17: Turning Back the Clock: Japan’s Misguided Postal Law is Back on the Table
June 2010
Revised October 2010
Op-ed: Will the Crisis Create a New Japan? March 16, 2011
Op-ed: Japan Must Dip into Its Rainy Day Fund March 24, 2011
Speech: Seven Broad Lessons for the United States from Japan’s Lost Decade March 26, 2009
Policy Brief 04-6: What Went Right in Japan November 2004
Working Paper 03-9: It Takes More than a Bubble to Become Japan October 2003
Working Paper 07-4: Industrial Policy, Innovation Policy, and Japanese Competitiveness May 2007