Qatar Post IPO within next three years

Qatar’s General Postal Corporation (Q-Post), which was granted autonomy in 2001, is expected to launch an Initial Public Offering (IPO) and get listed on the Doha Securities Market within the next three years, Ali Mohammad Al Ali, the Q-Post chairman, said on Thursday. At a press conference held at the Doha General Post Office, Ali said that making Q-Post a publicly held company, was one of the plans of the government. “We have all the required infrastructure and the brains to become a profitable public company and it will eventually become one,” he added. Emirates Post, the postal organization of the UAE, floated its IPO last week. Ali said that Q-Post, to increase its profits, will offer certain services that are traditionally not offered by a postal system. These, he said, would include printing of bank statements of customers of certain European and UK-based banks and mailing them. He explained that several banks in the UK outsource services such as printing and mailing of bank statements of customer accounts. “If they outsource it from a country like Australia, the cost to the bank is much higher. Qatar is nearer to the UK and we can provide an equally efficient service at a much lower cost,” he noted. He revealed that Q-Post would also bid for tenders floated by companies such as Qatar Telecom and the Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation for printing and mailing their bills to customers, as part of its efforts to boost revenue and move towards privatization. Q-Post, he said, has all the required infrastructure and skilled manpower to undertake such ventures.