Romania: Postal services quality up after market liberalization
The number of postal services providers increased from 5 in 1999 (the year the market liberalized) to 172 in December 2005, according to a survey on the postal services market made by the National Regulation Authority for Communications (ANRC), Bursa news agency reports.
According to the survey, the enforcement of an efficient regulation framework led to the improvement of services and cut in tariffs, thus stimulating productivity and enhancing the economic growth.
Of the 172 companies that operate on this market, 166 are authorized to provide value added services.
Of the 166, only 5 companies exclusively deal with value added services, while the rest targets other segments in the market.
According to statistics, 85 percent of these companies exclusively use their own distribution network, 4 percent work both through their distribution network and other companies, while 11 percent use other companies for distribution.
According to ANRC, the Posta Romana National Company is the only one providing universal postal services and has the most extensive distribution network in Romania.
According to statistics, the highest competition is in the domestic and international parcel services market, advertising and international deliveries.
Source: Bursa
Postalinsight:
Romania: No. of Postal Items Exceeded 500m in 2004
January 3, 2006 — [Press Release ]
“The National Regulatory Authority for Communications in December released the first Report on the statistical data regarding the market of postal services in 2004, elaborated based on the information transmitted by 134 postal service providers. The conclusions of the report show that, during 1999-2004, the number of companies in the postal services market witnessed significant growth, from 5 providers in 1999, when the market was liberalised, to 118 by the end of 2003, respectively 138 by the end of 2004. Among the 138 providers authorised in 2004, 107 actually operated in the market and processed 581,048,668 postal items, i.e. 26.77 postal items per capita, on average. The statistics prove that 118 providers (85% of the authorised providers) use exclusively their own network, 5 providers (4%) use both their own network and a third authorised company’s network, while 15 providers (11%) use exclusively a third company’s network. The segment of postal services within the scope of Universal Service is covered by only one provider – the National Company “Posta Romana” S.A. (CNPR). The segment of postal service outside the scope of Universal Service features vivid competition and a dynamic pace of service development and diversification. This trend is particularly rising in the sector of value-added services, especially in the Express service category: in 2004, 20 active providers in this segment processed a total traffic of 3,526,402 items.”
