The week that was: 6 January 2012
Rounding up the top stories of the week’s coverage on Post&Parcel, including Brazilian service targets, Russian international mail plans, and UPS support for young people… A very Happy New Year to all our readers from everyone at Post&Parcel and Triangle Management Services.
We start 2012 reporting on more intent from Brazil to use the post office as a tool to drive social development, efforts by UPS to help address the declining employment levels among young Americans, hopes of improving international mail efficiency in Russia and a number of companies repositioning themselves.
Brazil adopts regulations to strengthen universal services
The Brazilian government adopted regulations setting the Post and Telegraph Company (ECT or Correios) with service standard targets for the first time.
The targets, including the need to deliver 95% of letters within five working days, aim to guarantee service quality levels, and come alongside requirements to expand access to postal services into more rural areas. ECT currently provides postal services in 64% of districts in which less than 500 inhabitants live, but will have to extend services into all 4,261 such districts by 2015.
This week also saw a great start to a new $1.7bn postal banking partnership ECT began this month with Banco do Brasil.
Ministers back Russian Post push to regionalise international mail
This week saw government backing for a new Russian Post plan to persuade foreign posts to ship their international Russia-bound mail to the regions of the country, rather than merely the capital.
With three quarters of all incoming international mail currently entering the country through Moscow, Russian Post is looking to devolve the processing activities having been building up its regional network of international postal exchanges.
Russian Post will prioritise efforts to get the US, China and Germany on board in helping to improve efficiency by entering mail closer to final recipients, since those countries account for most incoming volumes.
UPS to offer 1,500 jobs to America’s disconnected youth
UPS has pledged to offer 1,500 employment opportunities to low-income and unemployed young people across the United States during the coming summer.
The parcel shipping giant is one of the private sector organisations backing President Obama’s Summer Jobs+ initiative, which seeks to provide experience in the jobs market for as many as 250,000 people aged 16-24 in 2012.
Paid employment at part-time rates will be offered in 71 centres in 35 US states, said UPS, with the employed young people set to be retained after the summer and even in with a good chance to progress to full-time and supervisory positions.
TNT Express, Itella Group, PostNord sell off business units
After the holiday period naturally come the sales, and in the mail and express industry this week, we saw a number of companies being sold, including TNT Express’s road delivery business in India, Itella Group’s Danish print services company Itella Information A/S, and PostNord’s overnight delivery units in Belgium and the Netherlands.
In India, TNT Express is looking to focus its activities on international inbound and outbound shipments, but under the new ownership of equity investors India Equity Partners, the acquired business will continue to be preferred partner for TNT in the final stage of delivery in India.
Itella Group will also continue to make use of its Itella Information A/S team, with new owners KMD, the Danish IT and printing services company, planning to continue carrying out Itella assignments in Denmark.
PostNord sold its HIT Starintex BV and HIT Belgium SA subsidiaries to German logistics firm Hellmann Worldwide Logistics, which will use the Night Star Express brand for the acquired operations. The Scandinavian postal operator said it was withdrawing to continue refocusing its activities in the Nordic region.
And finally…
Throughout the holiday period, we looked back on the 2011 year for the mail and express industry, highlighting some of the major stories that shaped the industry. If you missed it, here is another chance to catch it:
- The year that was 2011 – Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four
