Alliance between Austrian Post and foodstores

Osterreichische Post AG, the Austrian post office, plans a partnership with small foodstores, under which postal services will be offered in the food outlets, while 700 post offices are to be closed. This ‘Post.Partner’ programme will solve the problem of falling custom suffered by small food retailers. Osterreichische Post and the postal savings bank Postsparkasse will take over 60 per cent of the investment costs of 9,450 euros (the traders must pay 1,744 euros in EDP costs annually).

It is not yet clear who will take over the remaining 40 per cent, but Chamber of Commerce (WK) president Christoph Leitl is calling upon regional governments to provide support. So far, 2,500 interested parties have registered with the chamber of commerce for a partnership with the post office, and, according to Osterreichische Post head Anton Wais, the winning applicants will have been selected by the end of the first quarter of 2002.

Abstracted from Wirtschaftsblatt