Japan enacted laws today to privatise its postal system, including the world's biggest savings bank.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has long advocated the reform as a vital step to streamline the economy.
Parliament's upper house, whose rejection of the bills in August triggered a general election that the ruling camp won by a landslide, approved the legislation by a vote of 134 to 100 following adoption by the more powerful lower chamber on Tuesday.
Privatising the postal system has been the cornerstone of Mr Koizumi's agenda to wean the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from its addiction to the wasteful public spending that had won votes but bred scandals and inflated government debt.
The big election win by the LDP and its junior coalition partner in the September 11th lower house poll - cast by Mr Koizumi as a referendum on postal privatisation - convinced most ruling party members of the upper house who had previously opposed the bills to vote in favour of the legislation this time.
Under the postal laws, Japan Post, which has 25,000 post offices and some $3 trillion in assets, will be split into four entities under a new holding company and privatised in 2007. The holding company will sell off the postal savings and life insurance businesses by 2017.
Some analysts are now wondering whether Mr Koizumi, who has pushed for postal privatisation for most of this three decades in politics, will show the same dedication in tackling fresh reforms.