German parliament extends Deutsche Post letter delivery

Germany’s lower house of parliament approved a government proposal to extend Deutsche Post AG’s lucrative domestic letter monopoly by five years through the end of 2007.

The approval removes the last regulatory hurdle for the extension, Dow Jones News Service reported the government as saying.

Deutsche Post’s monopoly on the delivery of letters and catalogues was scheduled to run out at the end of 2002, but the Germany government decided to allow the company to keep its exclusive letter delivery until the European Union establishes regulations for postal markets in 2007.

Domestic mail delivery accounted for 77 percent of Deutsche Post’s profits in the first half of last year. Those profits more than doubled to 1.4 billion euros (dlrs 630 million) versus the previous year.