Agreement is near in the long-running debate over whether to Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp is to be broken up, Reuter reports from Tokyo. The government argues that a break-up is needed before the company is allowed to enter global telecommunications markets. The talks are now therefore thought to focus on the possible establishment of a holding company by Nippon Telegraph so that its domestic long-distance and local phone operations would be broken up into three or four different businesses but all would come under the single holding company – a structure presently not permitted under Japanese securities rules. Before the plan could take effect, the government must lift the near 50-year-old ban on the setting up of holding companies. The Post & Telecommunications Ministry said that agreement had not been reached with Nippon Telegraph but that a bill on its management status would be submitted to parliament during the session starting in January.
