Balance of postal savings may skid by 31 tril. yen in 5 yrs
TOKYO, Nov. 7, Kyodo - The Postal Services Agency expects the balance of postal savings to shrink by 31 trillion yen to 208 trillion yen by March 31, 2007, as consumers are likely to dig into their savings amid the deflation-hit economy, agency officials said Thursday.
The agency plans to report the estimate to a meeting of government officials in charge of the preparatory process leading up to the envisioned establishment of a public corporation to take over mail and postal savings services from the agency, the officials said.
In view of the new estimate, the agency will scramble to draw up a business plan as well as numerical business goals for the public entity for the initial four-year period from its establishment of the public entity slated for fiscal 2003, they said.
The balance sank to 239 trillion yen as of March 31 this year, down from 250 trillion yen a year earlier, partly because the agency had to reimburse huge amounts in the popular ''fixed-amount postal savings accounts'' whose maturities of up to 10 years expired.
The agency expects the combined balance of postal savings to give up an additional 4 trillion yen to 235 trillion yen by March 31, 2003.
An agency official said this spring, ''The phenomenon of a falling postal savings balance emanating from reimbursements appears to have come to a standstill.''
But depositors appear set to continue to pull money out of the postal savings system because they are expected to continue eating into savings to deal with the prolongation of deflation, the officials said.
The Postal Services Agency has run the pool of a combined 350 trillion yen, which consists of the 239 trillion yen in postal savings and premiums collected for its postal insurance policies.
The pool has played a key role in stabilizing government bond prices as the Finance Ministry's Trust Fund Bureau has funneled a sizable part of the pooled money into the bond market under Japan's fiscal investment and loan program.
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