Russia Post privatisation on track
Russian Post, the nationwide postal service established last September, will become a joint stock company next year and will go public in 2007, Communications Deputy Minister Alexander Kiselyov said Thursday.
The change in the company’s structure is part of a planned reorganization adopted in June to increase efficiency, speed and quality of the postal services.
Under the plan, Russian Post will consolidate the country’s 40,000 post offices in 82 regional postal departments by the end of this year.
The joint stock company will remain 100 percent owned by the government for 3 years, Kiselyov said. Once the company goes public, the government will keep a controlling share of the business, he added.
The Communications Ministry plans to introduce the necessary amendments to the law on postal services later this year to allow the change to happen. Currently the law does not allow privatization of postal service companies.
Revenues from postal services reached 29 billion rubles in 2002, a 29-percent increase from the previous year. Profitability was low, however, and hardly covered operating costs.
Average wages in the industry grew 39 percent to 3,040 rubles, still 50 percent lower than the nationwide average salary, Kiselyov said.
The CyberPost program, which was started in early 2001, has opened more than 2,600 public Internet access points with some 2 million users. Revenues from the Internet service were 37 million rubles ($1.2 million) since August 2001. On average, 200,000 people a month use public Internet access points, spending about 3.5 million rubles.
The ministry plans to increase the number of high-speed Internet access channels from 83 to 208 this year and open another 400 public access points.
In addition to Internet access points, the ministry implemented a pilot version of CyberPress, a program allowing readers in remote areas to access 84 periodicals via the web in local postal offices.
The ministry also plans to install more printing equipment needed for the service, officials said.
