UPU chief calls on Latin American governments to reform postal sector
The head of the Universal Postal Union has called on governments in Latin America to support the postal industry as a way to strengthen the regional economy.
Bishar A Hussein, the director general of the UN-affiliated agency supporting the global postal sector, was speaking at a meeting of the Postal Union of the Americas, Spain and Portugal in Montevideo, Uruguay.
He said the postal sector has suffered from a lack of regulation and exclusion from national development policies over the past three decades.
Partial or one-off reform efforts in that time have “severely” hampered the postal sector during that time according to UPU analysis, making it more difficult to modernise national postal services and comply with the universal service obligation.
Despite progress being made by several national posts in Latin America, their market share remains small in general according to the UPU. The average market share is about 20%, while only a small number hold more than a 50% of market share.
“The postal sector in Latin America is fragmented,” said Hussein. “Postal reform must bring together the sector’s various stakeholders under a framework that guarantees a level-playing field in the market and enables this market to grow.”
Development
The UPU, which has its headquarters in Berne, Switzerland, said yesterday that it will sink more than $1m in projects designed to help reform and develop the postal sector, improving quality of service in Latin America up to 2016. The agency has a framework it has developed to help governments reform their postal industries.
The agency said that it believes that as physical mail volumes decline, national posts should position themselves to seek growth in the kind of small packets generated by the soaring popularity of e-commerce.
An efficient parcel service would provide a “useful platform” on which to create other services that would drive national growth, the UPU suggested.
The UPU is also prioritizing development of the CorrioGiros money transfer service, which has been run by the Posts of 10 Latin American countries and Spain since 2007, and is based on the UPU’s own International Finance System.
Pointing to the value of such a system, the UPU noted that in 2012 $61.3bn was received in money transfers from the US, Spain and Japan in Latin America.
The agency said: “These transfers are critically important for Latin America in terms of micro and macro-economic growth, and Posts contribute to bringing down transfer fees by offering accessible and affordable services.
