Newly privatized post offices start delivering New Year's cards

Post offices across Japan started delivering New Year's greeting cards the morning of New Year's Day on Tuesday for the first time since the privatization of the country's postal system in October. According to Japan Post Service Co, a total of 2,033 million cards nationwide are to be delivered on New Year's Day. The figure is up 6.5% from a year earlier.
At Japan Post Service's Nihombashi branch in Tokyo's Chuo Ward, some 50 employees in new uniforms attended a ceremony to mark the delivery of the first batch of the greetings cards. Yoshifumi Nishikawa, president of Japan Post Holdings Co, the holding company of postal services providers, and Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Hiroya Masuda took part in the ceremony. "It fills me with emotion to realize that we are able to hold the first departing ceremony after the privatization here in Nihombashi, the birthplace of Japan's postal system," Nishikawa said.