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Post Fiji pays USD 457,000 in dividends

Posted by | Mar 5, 2007 | |

State owned company, Post Fiji has given government USD 457,000 in dividends for the 2005 financial year. This compares to USD 634,978 that Post Fiji gave in dividends for the 2004 financial year, a drop of 28 per cent. Post Fiji attributed the decrease to the cessation of the remailing business; a reduction of the commission from Telecom Fiji by 73.33 per cent and a slight increase in operating costs. But the postal company says it is diversifying its services by offering agency services, etc such BillPay, and more recently, ticketing for Pacific Blue. It is unclear what the profits of the company is, because “these accounts have yet to be tabled and are not available for public consumption as yet,” Post Fiji said. Mid last year, the company had been approved a 12 per cent increase for domestic postal services. Early last year, the company’s board chairman Mahendra Patel said that the “progress of Post Fiji is reflected in the growth of sales from a USD 13 million company in 1996 to the present turnover of USD 40 million in 2005.”

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Fibernet wins Correos fibre-optic network contract

Posted by | Mar 4, 2007 | |

Fibernet, owned by Teldat, has won a contract to renew Correos’, postal operator, fibre optic network in Madrid, Spain, reports Cinco Dias. The deal forms part of the plan to modernise Correos’ network and equipment. Investment of EUR 887,780 will see new optical transmission equipment installed. Correos will also have the configurations necessary to create high-capacity communications links. The new network will allow Correos to optimise processes and use multimedia systems such as videoconferencing. The implementation started in February, and will last for two months.

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Royal Mail seeks new price deal to compete with TNT

Posted by | Mar 4, 2007 | |

The UK postal regulator is expected to meet Royal Mail executives in the coming weeks to discuss ways of easing the group’s financial troubles, The Observer reported.

Royal Mail’s interim profits have slumped to 22 mln stg from over 100 mln stg.

The Observer said PostComm officials will examine whether arrangements that allow rival distributors such as TNT and DHL to compete for bulk mail business should be altered to give Royal Mail more pricing flexibility.

Licensed operators that carry bulk mail from companies such as banks, utilities and government are allowed to use Royal Mail’s local delivery network for a charge of 13 pence an item currently, the report said.

PostComm figures show that in the first two years of competition from 2004, the Royal Mail’s market share fell by 3 pct, The Observer said. However, Royal Mail claims the figure has risen to more than 10 pct in the past year.

The report said the group wants to be allowed to lower prices to compete. It can do this, but it must also maintain the margin available to competitors.

Royal Mail told The Observer this allows rivals to continue to undercut its prices as their costs fall.

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Electric vans for French post office

Posted by | Mar 4, 2007 | |

In late 2005, France’s state-run postal service began a trial of eight experimental Cleanova electric vans in an effort to meet a government requirement to reduce pollution.

Not only did the vans work well and prove cheaper to operate than gasoline-powered ones, but the mailmen who drove them reported higher job satisfaction. Now, La Poste is working on a five-year plan to replace the bulk of its 48,000-vehicle fleet with electric cars.

The cars La Poste used were developed by Société de Véhicules Électriques (SVE), and were outfitted with a specially designed lithium-ion battery developed by a joint venture of Milwaukee car-parts maker Johnson Controls Inc. and French battery company Saft Groupe.

SVE has yet to settle on a price for its electric car, and it isn’t clear how much La Poste will have to pay to increase its fleet. But the car will be significantly more expensive than a traditional gasoline-powered vehicle because of the high cost of the lithium-ion battery, which La Poste says would account for about 60% of the unit price. The mail company says it will save on operating expenses because charging the electric car with electricity costs about one-sixth what it would spend to fill up the tank with gasoline.

SVE plans to make only a few cars at first. The French company expects to begin volume production toward year end with the assembly of 1,000 vehicles and, from 2009, gradually ramp up production to about 20,000 a year. That would be a fraction of the two million vehicles sold in France every year, though still more than all the other electric cars ever produced.

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Royal Mail management review on hold

Posted by | Mar 4, 2007 | |

The Royal Mail, which last week called for a 6p hike in stamp prices, has shelved a controversial management shake-up.
Insiders had said the state-controlled group was looking to introduce new pay scales and positions, meaning staff would have been forced to reapply for their own jobs. The Amicus union was known to be concerned, and told The Independent on Sunday last autumn that it was seeking meetings with senior management over the issue.
However, Royal Mail, which is striving to reduce costs in the face of stiffer competition, has decided to shelve the review while it focuses on investing fresh funds in the business. The Government has pledged to provide more than GBP 2bn, a large portion of which will be used to modernise sorting machinery.

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Empost opens specialized service department that offers packing and removal solutions

Posted by | Mar 3, 2007 | |

Empost, UAE’s National Courier Company, has expanded its range services by opening the Cargo and Logistics Removals Department that will specialize in moving households, office relocations, transporting exhibition equipment and handling of personal effects.

The new department utilizes state-of-the-art technologies, such as a specially developed range of packing cartons to provide the best protection for the clients’ belongings. Empost has also customized vans to cater to the unique service demands.

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USPS upgrades international products with alliance partners

Posted by | Mar 2, 2007 | |

The US Postal Service (USPS) aims to grow its international business with guaranteed products offered through the ‘Kahala Postal Group’ (KPG) of selected international postal operators, a top official told CEP-Research in an interview. Royal Mail and Spain’s Correos have just agreed to join the six-strong group.

The USPS is putting a stronger focus on its international business than in the past, and aims to target small US firms for their international express mail and deferred parcel business, Paul Vogel, managing director global business and senior vice president, said on the sidelines of this week’s World Mail & Express Logistics Middle East, Africa & South Asia conference in Dubai. He took charge of the newly-created Global Business unit in summer 2006.

Britain’s Royal Mail and Spain’s Correos have just agreed to join the KPG alliance, Vogel said. The fundamental aim was to expand the alliance to other postal operators in Europe and elsewhere as they upgraded their performance standards to be able to provide guaranteed services. “ I believe most Posts can improve their service,” Vogel commented. But he added: “If a post cannot promise visibility and service, then I need an alternative.”

Although the Kahala members had a reasonably balanced flow of items, there were no plans to invest in any postal air network, Vogel stressed. USPS has a long-term agreement with FedEx for its international uplift, and uses both FedEx and UPS alongside commercial airlines within the USA.

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Interview – FedEx eyes booming Middle East-India trade

Posted by | Mar 2, 2007 | |

FedEx is seeking to take advantage of the fast growth in trade between India and the Middle East with its direct flights between the two regions, a senior manager told CEP-Research in an interview.

The US integrator expanded its Middle East capacity in autumn 2005 by upgrading weekday flights from its European air hub in Paris to the Middle East hub at Dubai with an MD-11 freighter. It also started its own flights from Dubai to India in place of using commercial capacity. FedEx now has a daily eastbound and westbound service using MD-11 flights that operate from Paris via Dubai to Delhi and Mumbai, and return via Dubai to Paris.

“The MD-11 flights open up the market with large capacity,” said Brian Britnor, senior manager sales, Middle East & Africa, on the sidelines of this week’s World Mail & Express Logistics Middle East, Africa & South Asia conference in Dubai. Trade between India and Dubai, which has a large Indian business community, has more than quadrupled since 2002 to reach $10.9 billion in 2006, according to official statistics from Dubai released at the end of February.

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