French La Poste and SNCF to set up 50/50 Joint Venture
French national post office La Poste and French national railway company SNCF will set up a 50/50 joint venture company to transport postal freight in Europe on high-speed trains, it was reported on November 20, 2006.
No financial details were disclosed.
The joint venture is expected to be operational at the end of 2008, the two companies said. The deal will enable La Poste to boost the development of its mail quality project, launched in 2004. It represents a total investment of 3.4 bln euro (USD 4.4 bln) until 2010 and aims at improving the speed of mail delivery.
Currently the postal freight uses three high-speed trains, covering eight delivery points between the logisitcs platforms in Paris, Macon and Cavaillon.
The two companies also said that they were studying a project for a high-speed train hub from the Paris airport Roissy Charles De Gaulle 2 (Roissy CDG2) which would make it possible to connect Strasbourg, Dijon, Rennes, Lyon, Bordeaux via Poitiers and Lille.
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Source: Journal du Net
