Following consultation, Postcomm has today published a decision document setting out its conclusions and recommendations on tackling the barriers to entry in the postal services market that were identified in its Competitive Market Review published in November 2005.
P:LibraryPostalPostComm Formal DocumentsCompetitive_Market_Review_ final_decisions_Apr_2006.pdf
Read MoreOne of the leading private mail competitors to Deutsche Post has announced a top management change. PIN AG, part of the new postal group backed by leading German newspaper groups, has named Axel Stirl as its new managing director following the resignations of the company’s two founders. Bernhard Klapproth and Martina Roitzsch, who founded PIN AG in 1999, have resigned their board positions and are leaving the company. No reason was given for their departure.
Read MoreA government panel on privatization of Japan Post approved Wednesday the postal entity’s plan to invest in an air cargo joint venture to be set up by All Nippon Airways Co., Nippon Express Co. and Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd., panel members said. This will pave the way for the joint venture, ANA & JP Express Co., to begin logistical operations in August between Japan and China after the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications will endorse the approval as early as later this month. Japan Post, which is due to be privatized over a 10-year period starting in October 2007, is seeking to make international logistics services as one of its main revenue sources, considering its weak earning power in conventional postal services.
Read MoreThe sprawling savings arm of China’s monopoly postal service has begun making loans for the first time, a move intended to help it prepare for its transformation into the country’s fifth-largest bank. After years of delay, officials say Beijing is close to launching reform of the Postal Savings and Remittance Bureau, which has more than 36,000 branches and held Rmb1,300bn (USD162bn, GBP93bn) in deposits at the end of 2005. “It should happen very soon,” an official at the China Banking Regulatory Commission said yesterday.
As part of preparations for its life as an independentbank, the CBRC hasgranted the postal savings bureau permission to offer small loans to rural customers on a trial basis. Most of the bureau’s income currently comes from long-standing deposits with the People’s Bank of China, the central bank, on which it earns favourable interest rates.
ANC Group’s six-strong management group has taken a majority shareholding and secured a new long term equity investor.
The result of the funding deal is that: RBS and Halifax BoS have excited the company: the management have added 50% of the company to their earlier shareholding and now own 73.75%; and Lloyds TSB Development Capital owns 26.25%, with a commitment to retain its stake for seven years.
The aim of the Observatory is to provide sector players and the public with major sector indicators (revenues, traffic volumes and number of access points). To provide a sufficiently complete view of the markets in question, the Observatory is not limited to those activities requiring an authorisation (distribution of items of correspondence, including cross-border), but also covers mail preparation, express mail and parcel activities. This is why we also questioned firms which are outside of the scope of application of the authorisations regime, and the federations representing them. This publication presents the results of the initial collection of information covering the activity of firms in France in 2004. It is an initial approach to postal markets.
P:LibraryPostalARCEP observatory on French post mtk 2004.pdf
The German authorities are coming under pressure from the EU Commission to impose VAT on the services of Deutsche Post, the country’s postal service operator and former state monopolist. Until now, most of the company’s services are free of VAT, but Brussels regards the situation as being of disadvantage to competitors on the market, such as the Luxembourg-based service provider PIN Group and the Dutch group TNT, both of which are subject to VAT. The EU taxation commissioner Laszlo Kovacs therefore yesterday introduced infringement proceedings against Germany, and Berlin has two months in which to react to Brussels’ accusations.
Read MoreThe European Commission (EC) wants to give TPG Post, the mail business of Dutch mail and logistics group TNT NV, and other foreign competitors an equal chance on the German and UK postal markets while abolishing the payment of value added tax (VAT) on mail services, the EC said on April 10, 2006. An exemption from VAT on these markets has been granted only to the former monopolists Deutsche Post and Royal Mail for most of their services. According to the European Commissioner Laszlo Kovacs (fiscal affairs), the VAT differences are not in line with the European Union (EU) competition rules.
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