Postal Service Rates to Grow in Latvia Next Year

The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission council on Wednesday approved the plan by the national postal company Latvijas Pasts to raise the charges for mailing letters and other postal services in Latvia as of next year, said the regulator.

According to the new rates, the price for mailing a letter in Latvia will be raised to 22 santims (EUR 0.31) next year from the current price of 15 santims. The rates for letters to be sent abroad as well as banderoles and parcels to addresses both in Latvia and abroad will also increase.

Latvijas Pasts director general Gints Skodovs said that the postal company wanted to raise the rates in view of the continuously increasing prices in Latvia, which pushed up also costs, in particularly the fuel costs.

He said that the current rates for postal services in Latvia had been introduced back in 1999. If Latvijas pasts failed to raise its rates, the company won’t be able to grow and would have to suspend a number of projects which would result in a four million lats loss next year.

Skodovs said that upon Latvijas Pasts losing its monopoly to postal services in Latvia in 2009 the company could lower its rates if other operators entered the market and competition increased.

He said the new rates had been calculated in the manner that won’t require further increase of prices in the coming years. Moreover, they can also be converted into euros easily upon Latvia’s switch to the common European currency planned for 2008.

The new rates for Latvijas Pasts services will take effect on January 1, 2006.

Latvijas Pasts is fully owned by the Latvian states. At the end of 2004 the company had 967 post offices across Latvia and several postal service counters in the largest shopping centers.

The company’s turnover in 2004 was 26.313 million lats, up 7 percent from 2003, and it earned a profit of 296,000 lats.

(EUR 1 = LVL 0.7028)