Author: Archive

French Regulator ART changes name to Arcep

Posted by | May 31, 2005 | |

French telecommunications regulator ART has changed its name to Arcep (L’Autorite de Regulation des Communications Electroniques et des Postes), to take account of the French postal and electronic communications sector, it was reported on May 31, 2005. The name change has been planned since the beginning of 2005, but the new name was unveiled recently. Arcep (www.arcep.fr) was set up to regulate the liberalised postal and electronic communications sector.

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Dutch TNT Reiterates 2005 Outlook

Posted by | May 30, 2005 | |

TNT NV, former TPG NV, has reiterated the earlier announced outlook for the company’s performance in 2005 at a press conference held on May 30, 2005.
TNT expects a one-digit year-on-year increase in turnover of its Express unit in 2005. The Post and Logistics units are expected to report unchanged year-on-year results for 2005. Chief executive officer (CEO) of TNT, Peter Bakker said he had confidence in achieving the targets set for 2005. According to the CEO, TNT will announce a number of cooperation agreements with Chinese companies in 2005. TNT continues looking for strategic options within Europe, Bakker concluded.

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German DHL Express to promote Europlus Courier Service in Poland

Posted by | May 30, 2005 | |

German express delivery services provider DHL Express, a subsidiary of mail services group Deutsche Post, will start promoting its new courier service DHL Europlus in Poland on June 1, 2005, Aleksander Morozowski, CEO of the company’s Polish unit, said.

The promotion campaign, which will last for three months, is connected with the recent opening of DHL Express’s international parcels sorting centre in Zabrze, Silesia province, southern Poland.

During the company’s promotion campaign parcels from Zabrze centre will be delivered to countries south of Poland, including the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia, France, Italy and Hungary, in two or three working days at a 50 pct discount price, Morozowski added.

DHL Europlus service enables customers to order a courier and to monitor the parcel shipment through the Internet.

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UK Royal Mail hit by defection of big customers to rival operators

Posted by | May 30, 2005 | |

Royal Mail is set to lose some of its biggest and most lucrative customers with a string of government departments, high street banks and insurers preparing to defect to rival postal operators.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the Inland Revenue and several large banks are understood to be close to switching from Royal Mail to one of the new breed of competitors which have moved in after the liberalisation of the pounds 5.8bn postal market.

Losing the DWP, in particular, would be a serious blow for Royal Mail as it is the biggest postal user of any Whitehall department. The DWP has already removed about pounds 400m of business a year from Royal Mail by paying state benefits direct into bank accounts rather than through the Post Office branch network.

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Irish An Post and staff at odds over future

Posted by | May 29, 2005 | |

Arcane trade union practices are threatening An Post’s potentially profitable bulk mail business, according to company management.

Direct marketing mail increased by 22 per cent last year, as traditional postal services declined.

Last week, An Post began an investigation into the dumping of bulk mail in a ditch by postal staff in Co Meath.

The company’s commercial director, DerekKickham, said it was not an isolated incident and indicated a need for workers to undergo a mindset change’. But Sean McDonagh, of the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU), said only one postal worker had been sacked for dumping mail in the past year.

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Postwatch accuses Royal Mail of misleading Postcomm over competition

Posted by | May 29, 2005 | |

A row is set to break out this week as the postal services watchdog Postwatch accuses Royal Mail of misleading the industry’s financial regulator.

The charge comes days before the regulator Postcomm publishes its initial proposals on how much Royal Mail can charge for deliveries for the three years beginning next spring.

Postwatch, whose relations with Royal Mail under chairman Allan Leighton have been strained since it advised customers not to use first- class post over the Christmas rush, claims Royal Mail exaggerated the threat it faced from competition in order to get a lenient regulatory settlement last time around, in 2003.

The dispute focuses on forecasts made by Royal Mail for mail volumes, a key driver of its profits, which it said would suffer from the introduction of competition.

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Union chief claims Leighton’s UK Royal Mail plans are doomed

Posted by | May 29, 2005 | |

Alan Johnson, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, has pledged to reject plans to part-privatise the Royal Mail.

The claim is made by Billy Hayes, the general secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), who met Mr Johnson on Tuesday.

The news comes after weeks of speculation that Mr Johnson was warming to Royal Mail proposals to turn the state-owned business into a John Lewis- style partnership.

But Mr Hayes said: ‘Alan Johnson said that the Government would stick to the manifesto commitment and keep Royal Mail in the public sector. He said that he had no plans to renege on that.’

Allan Leighton, chairman of Royal Mail, wants to part-privatise it, by buying 51 per cent of the company from the Government, and hand shares to the workers.

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UK Royal Mail tests water on rural cost-cutting plan

Posted by | May 29, 2005 | |

Royal Mail is lobbying politicians on its cost-cutting plans to head off the prospect of a mass closure of rural post offices. Chief executive Adam Crozier has begun negotiations with government on the future of the GBP 150m-a-year subsidy which keeps the rural network afloat. He has warned that if the funding is stopped when the current package runs out in 2008 he will be forced to close 80% of the UK’s 8,000 rural post offices. To slash the running costs, Crozier is proposing to replace some rural outlets with mobile post offices, while other small post offices will be merged. The talks come amid a row at Whitehall over who should fund the rural subsidy, with the Department of Trade and Industry trying to pass the burden to the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs.

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