Consignia does not have the financial systems in place to compete as a commercial corporation despite being the equivalent of a FTSE 100 company, chairman Allan Leighton admitted yesterday.
It would take another 12 months for the benefits of a pounds 100m project to update its computer systems to come through and allow it to compete on equal terms with the private sector, he told members of the commons trade and industry select committee.
In a major test of China’s willingness to maintain free and open markets as a new member of the World Trade Organization, the state-run postal monopoly has issued an order that could virtually shut down the operations of United Parcel Service, Federal Express and other express mail companies in China.
China Post announced it would limit express delivery by private companies to articles more than 500 grams –1.1 pounds — require all prices to be higher than the postal authority’s and forbid delivery to offices of the government, military or Communist Party or of any item addressed to an individual.
Airborne Express Annual Report 2001
Read MoreValue
1997 – £547.9m
1998 – £570.8m
1999 – £593.2m
2000 – £617.8m
2001 – £642.4m
Forecast
2002 – £656.2m
2003 – £676.4m
2004 – £697.6m
2005 – £713.2m
2006 – £729.1m
Published in IFW, source: trade & MSI forecasts
MORE than 600 jobs are being created in Plymouth with the official unveiling today of the country’s first state-of-the-art mail centre.
Royal Mail has opened the first Manual Data Entry Centre (MDEC) at its former offices in Pennycomequick to help speed up the nation’s post.
The centre is the first of two being set up in the UK and is part of a national initiative called Address Interpretation (AI).
Consignia is to start trials in the next few weeks to stop second deliveries, which accounted for just 4% of mail, but 30% of the cost of deliveries, which was “nuts”, said Mr Leighton.
He also revealed that Consignia was looking to transport more first-class mail by road and switch more second-class post to rail.
The perilous state of the Post Office was revealed today when the chairman of mail group Consignia said the service needed “major surgery” to survive.
Allan Leighton starkly told a committee of MPs that managers were totally focused on making sure the organisation was still in existence in a few years’ time.
Thousands of jobs are being cut, post offices will close and second deliveries look set to be axed, MPs heard.
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