- Japan: The Japanese government is preparing to privatise the Japanese post office. The plans still need the approval of the Parliament, and would entail post services being divided into several units, sold off in stages from 2007 to 2017. The end result would be the state holding less than a third of the company. The Japanese post office is the world's biggest financial institution regarding savings, and employs a third of all Japanese civil servants, having a workforce of more than 270,000.