TOKYO, Oct. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- A set of laws on postal privatization reforms passed Japanese parliament and became enacted Friday, clearing the way for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to realize his long-standing initiative from Oct. 1, 2007.

    After the general election in Japan on Sept. 11, the Japanese government resubmitted postal privatization bills rejected during the previous parliament session. The House of Representatives passed the bills by a 200-vote margin Tuesday.

    The House of Councillors' Special Committee on Postal Privatization approved the proposed legislation earlier Friday, and the upper house's plenary session enacted it 134 to 100 in the afternoon.

    Speaking to reporters at his office, Koizumi called the enactment of the laws a "political miracle" and thanked the publicfor supporting his drive.

    Most of the members of Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party who joined the opposition in the upper house to reject the bills before the Sept. 11 election supported them in the wake of Koizumi's landslide victory.

    "There is no end to reform," Koizumi said in renewing his commitment to reforming Japan's structural problems. "I will have to advance reform more than ever from now on."

    At a separate news conference, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda listed examples of issues, which the administration will now tackle to streamline Japan's government. He cited fiscal decentralization, reform of public corporations, a cut in the number of public servants and reform of special state coffers.

    Having accomplished his administration's highest priority goal of this year, Koizumi is now expected to shift his focus to planned reshuffles of his Cabinet and the LDP leadership after theparliament session ends Nov. 1.

    Attention will be paid to the way he promotes in the reshufflespotential candidates to succeed him after he leaves office in September next year.

    The premier is also slated to tackle through the end of the year initiatives to streamline the government such as fiscal decentralization, consolidation of state-run financial institutions and a major target to reduce the number of public servants.

    Under the just-approved legislation, Japan Post will be split into four stock companies on Oct. 1, 2007, and its postal savings and "kampo" life insurance businesses will be fully privatized by Sept. 30, 2017, under certain guarantees that they be kept universally available at post offices.

    The only change to the bills since their failure in the previous parliament session that ended Aug. 8 is that the 10-year privatization process has been moved back by six months.

    The bills cleared the lower house earlier this week as the LDP and its ruling coalition partner, the New Komeito party, now hold more than two-thirds of its 480 seats together.

    Most of the "rebel" lower house LDP members who previously opposed the bills but survived the election as independents also joined in voting for them this time.

    Koizumi called the lower house election to ask the public's view on the policy and brought a landslide victory to the LDP by fielding only proponents of postal privatization as candidates.

    The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, which attributesits devastating election losses to its failure in the previous session to make a counter proposal, had presented an alternative postal reform bill but it was rejected in the lower house. Enditem