Mediterranean posts team up on e-commerce, mail technology
Postal operators lining the shores of the Mediterranean have formed a new “postal community” to collaborate on mail services and e-commerce logistics. An agreement on a shared postal policy was signed in Rome yesterday, as 13 operators established the new “Postal Euromed” group.
The members of the group includes Italy, France, Greece, Monaco, Malta, Cyprus, Slovenia, Turkey, Lebanon, the Palestinian National Authority, Egypt, Syria and Jordan.
Poste Italiane hosted the organisation’s first meeting at its headquarters.
National-based postal operators see cross-border cooperation as one of the best ways to take on the major shipping companies in the flourishing market for shipping packages from online retailers.
As well as setting up a common, cross-border platform for the shipping of online purchases, the Postal Euromed group has agreed to work together to develop technologies for a more efficient mail service, and to provide more effective international financial and communication services.
One of the group’s priorities is to cut the cost of transferring money between members by 5% in the next five years.
Strategy
Postal Euromed has an elected board of directors, with the first members from France, Italy, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Malta.
Sherif Battisha, deputy chairman of Egypt Post was elected chairman of the Board for three years up to 2013.
The group is to draw up a three-year strategy, which it will present to major European and international funding organizations including the World Bank, the European Commission and Europe’s Inframed infrastructure fund.
Poste Italiane chief executive Massimo Sarmi said: “Postal Euromed represents an important means of supporting and promoting forms of partnership between Mediterranean countries in the logistics, technology and financial sectors.”
Sarmi said cooperation in the Mediterranean had been a priority for his company for many years. Poste Italiane has already been working with operators in Egypt and Lebanon in areas including infrastructure and technology development, including on advanced payment systems, digital services and mobile phone systems.
Poste Italiane has also, this week, signed an agreement with Slovenia’s Posta Slovenije, to partner on an electronic money transfer network.
