Japanese said Monday it would sell off another chunk of the country's massive postal service in a share sale that could raise up to 1.4 trillion yen.

Tokyo said it would sell up to 990 million shares in Japan Post, or about 22 percent of its outstanding shares, the finance ministry said in a statement.

The sale could raise 1.4 trillion yen based on Monday's closing price of 1,321 yen. The sale price will be decided sometime between September 25 and 27, it added.

After years of delays, 1.43 trillion yen was raised in an initial public offering in late 2015 that included shares in Japan Post's banking and insurance units.

The bulk of proceeds from selling shares in the government-owned behemoth were earmarked for reconstruction efforts after Japan's 2011 quake-tsunami disaster.

The earlier sale came amid hopes starting to privatise what is effectively the world's biggest bank by deposits could boost investor sentiment and spur efforts to cut red tape in Japan's highly regulated economy.

The sprawling postal group has a network of some 24,000 bureaux across the nation and sits on assets worth more than 290 trillion yen.

Source: ANNnewsCH