Ceska Posta monopoly to be reduced to 50-gram letters next year
Ceska posta, the Czech Post Office, will see its monopoly position reduced next year and while now it is the sole company to deliver mail weighing less than 100 grams, next year it will be only letters up to 50 grams, the IT Ministry told CTK today.
As for the price, now it can charge 3-times the current price, which will be cut to 2.5-times that price.
Mail weighing 50 to 100 grams now make up less than 2 pct of some 700 million letters delivered annually at the moment. Ceska posta estimates that due to the market liberalisation it would lose half of them at the most, which would cause it a loss worth several dozens of millions of crowns.
“Of course, there will be a fall, but it will not be too big,” Vancura said.
Before the end of next year, the EC is to decide on measures to complete the liberalisation of the internal postal market as of the beginning of 2009.
The exclusive position on part of the market is to allow Ceska posta to provide basic services in the whole country for affordable prices without state subsidies.
Thus far, rivals have focused on profitable express services and transport of goods, on which no limitations exist. The share of rival companies in individual unregulated areas moves between 20 and 40 pct.
Ceska posta’s biggest competitors are DHL, TNT, UPS, Mediaservis and Messenger.
This year in February, Ceska posta raised the prices of some of its services by 14 pct on average. Sending an ordinary letter, for example, now costs Kc7.50 instead of Kc6.50. The highest increase was seen in the price of postal orders – Kc14.
Ceska posta net profit fell by a third to Kc444.6m last year, while its sales grew by 5 pct to Kc15.89bn.
State-owned Ceska posta has 3,400 branches and employs some 39,000 people. This year it wants to cut workforce by around 500.
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