Japan Govt Won't Sell Stake In Japan Tobacco - Report (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

Japan Govt Won't Sell Stake In Japan Tobacco - Report
by Dow Jones Newswires
Source: The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition, Wednesday, 12/15/99

TOKYO -- The Japanese government decided Wednesday to scrap a proposal to
sell part of its stake in Japan's sole tobacco producer Japan Tobacco Inc.
(J.JTB or 2914) due to the low price of the company's stock and political
opposition to the plan, the Mainichi Shimbun reported in its Thursday
morning edition.

The proposal had emerged as an alternative to hiking tobacco taxes by Y2
per cigarette, which would have given government coffers a Y500 billion
boost in revenues.

There had been some support for the proposal from within the ruling
Liberal Democratic Party but the government did not see any reason to rush
to sell its stake, which was said to have been a spur-of-the moment idea,
according to the report.

Political debate over a law stipulating the size of the government's stake
in the company is likely to continue, though, as some have strong opinions
that the two-thirds stake is too large, the report said.

URL for this Article:
http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=DI-CO-19991215-007476.djml