Japan Post Service and Japan Post Network. Japan Post Bank, which deals with banking functions. Japan Post Insurance, which provides life insurance. Toll Group, which provides transportation and logistics Privatization Early discussions Privatization of the postal system in Japan was first considered in the 1980s under Prime Minister Nakasone, who, amid concerns about the government deficit, oversaw the privatization of three major public corporations: the Japanese National Railways, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT), and Japan Tobacco. These discussions did not proceed, and in 1997 the issue of privatizing Japan Post Bank specifically was raised again under Prime Minister Hashimoto. This time, opposition from within the ruling and opposition parties resulted only in reforms aimed at improving financial discipline that fell short of actual privatization. Enactment of privatization In 2001, during an economic downturn in Japan, LDP politician Junichiro Koizumi took office with significant public support to privatize the postal system. Benefits of privatization that were touted by supporters included efficiency of the financial sector, reducing political influence in the use of postal savings, and reducing bureaucratic mismanagement of funds. Detractors, including the postal lobby were concerned that privatization would shrink the universal availability of postal services in Japan, losing to job losses and the closing of rural post offices. Prime Minister Koizumi quickly established a commission to examine privatization of the postal system's businesses and in 2002 a package of four bills was passed which established Japan Post as a public corporation. In the following year, he was reelected with a promise to privatize the postal system. In 2004, Koizumi's government announced an ambitious ten-year plan for splitting Japan Post into several privatized entities by 2017. In 2005, the resulting package of six privatization bills was defeated in the upper house of the Japanese Diet, and Koizumi called a snap election focused on postal privatization. He won the election in a landslide, receiving a public mandate for his privatization plans and defeating members of his own party who were opposed. The privatization package passed a few weeks later. 2005 plan for privatization The Postal Privatization Law passed in 2005 laid out a framework for a preparation phase, a ten-year transition phase that was revised to start on October 1, 2007, and a post-privatization phase to organize the companies into their final forms. A Cabinet-level Postal Privatization Headquarters would be established to develop and implementation plan to manage privatization and divide