Nigeria earns N300m from parcel post in 2003
The Postmaster General of the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST), Alhaji Abubakar Musa Argungu has announced that the country recorded an impressive N300 million as revenue from parcel post in 2003 alone. The postmaster general who spoke yesterday in Abuja at the two-day African Regional Conference on postal parcels, explained that the income tripled the revenue generated through the same business in 2000 when N105 million was recorded. He told Business Day in a chat after the opening ceremony that Nigeria was first in Africa in terms of revenue generation through postal parcels followed by South Africa, which he said exported 107,800 parcels and imported 230,000.
Alhaji Argungu also said that Ghana was third with 42,648 exported and 23,254 imported parcels. Other countries on the table provided by the postmaster general included Republic of Congo (32,256 and 42,256 parcels exported and imported respectively), Kenya (10,111 and 69,601 parcels exported and imported respectively) and Tanzania (5,488 and 20,278 parcels exported and imported respectively. The results, he said, were for 2001. According to him, revenue in respect of of EMS parcel exports earned by Nigeria for 2001 was N169 million. He disclosed that the parcel post market worldwide was estimated at about $80 billion annually out of which, he said, the African share was very insignificant. He therefore charged delegates to the regional conference to work out strategies to develop the postal parcel business by increasing its market share. Also speaking, a representative of the Pan African Postal Union (PAPU), Mr Ben Haddada stressed that it was time that parcel post took advantage of the global market especially with globalization in place. He however maintained that the development of the parcel post business was achievable only when commitment and workable strategies were positioned to meet the demands of customers. Delegates to the conference as at the time of filing this report were from Chad, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Cameroun, Uganda, Kenya and Zimbabwe out of the 50 countries that were expected to participate.
