Year: 2008

Steinbrueck presses for Deutsche Post to keep sales tax exemption (Germany)

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck plans to maintain Deutsche Post AG’s exemption from Germany’s general sales tax, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported.

The move would rebuff economy minister Michael Glos, who is seeking to limit Deutsche Post’s existing tax break to services to households and small businesses, the newspaper said.

Companies that deliver letters countrywide at ‘affordable prices’ should be spared the general sales tax of 19 pct, the paper quoted the documents as saying.

This would leave only Deutsche Post benefiting from the exemption, the paper said.

Competitors of Deutsche Post including PIN Group have claimed that new minimum wage rules favour Deutsche Post and are forcing them to abandon or rein in plans to compete with the former postal services monopoly across Germany.

They have also said Deutsche Post’s tax break puts them at an even greater disadvantage.

The sales tax exemption is designed to reward Deutsche Post for delivering mail to even the remotest parts of Germany.

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Itella Information expands to Poland

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

Itella Group is expanding to Poland. Itella Information has signed an agreement on acquiring the business operations of BusinessPoint S.A, a Polish company specialising in printing and document management. The deal is conditional, requiring e.g. the approval of the Polish competition authorities. Vendors are the owners of the company and they will continue in Itella’s service.

BusinessPoint is one of the largest service providers in its field in Poland, posting net sales of approximately EUR 15 million in 2006 and employing a staff of 100 permanent employees.
– For some time now, Itella Information has been investigating the possibilities of expanding into the Polish market. In Poland, the outsourcing of printing and document management operations is only in its initial stages, and expansion into new, growing markets in Poland is a natural direction for Itella Information’s growth, comments Heikki Länsisyrjä, business group director at Itella Information.
– This deal allows us to create even more innovative services for the Polish market. Itella Information is an experienced service operator in the field of information logistics, and we can benefit from that experience and develop new services, particularly in the fields of e-invoicing and e-transactions, says Jacek Zaremba, Managing Director of BusinessPoint S.A.

Besides companies in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany and the Baltic countries Itella Group operates also in Russia where Itella opened a logistics centre last year. Poland will be the tenth country where Itella operates.

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Q-Post to test new technology

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

Qatar is leading an initiative in collaboration with the Universal Postal Union (UPU) to ensure that payments between countries are made on time.

The General Postal Corporation (Q-Post) is hosting a meeting at the General Post Office to determine which company would be best suited to provide the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology.

Ali Mohammed Al Ali, General Manager of Q-Post, told reporters: “Most likely the pilot project will begin from March and run for three months. We have to see what technology to use. It could be from Spain or China for example. This meeting will help us determine which system to use.”

Catina Aghayan, Quality and Development Consultant with Q-Post, told The Peninsula: “This is a pilot project for the whole region and is a first for the whole (postal) industry. It is meant for quality service improvement.”

She said by 2009-2010, all international payments will be linked to the quality of services. Failure to meet quality standards would result in penalties, said Aghayan.

The system will test a scientific and accurate system for payment and also enable a monitoring of service. “After the three-month period, the results will be passed on to the UPU,” said Aghayan.

Qatar is one of the ten member countries who constitute the Quality Steering Committee of the UPU.

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ABB Robotics selected as pre-qualified integrator for USPS

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

ABB Robotics has been selected by the United States Postal Service (USPS) as a pre-qualified integrator for general material handling systems, expanding the company’s scope of supply beyond robotic containerization systems (RCS), which ABB has been providing to the USPS since 1999.

ABB has provided 167 robotic containerization systems to USPS facilities throughout the U.S. Through the RCS program, ABB has delivered other robot automation and control systems utilizing ABB controls and drives products. The success of this program led ABB to an extensive bidding and qualifying process for general material handling systems.

As a pre-qualified integrator, ABB, along with a select number of other suppliers, has been awarded with an ordering agreement extending for three years, placing ABB on the pre-qualified bid list for general mail handling automation.

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DHL Express France to test environmental vehicles

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

DHL Express France has announced plans to start testing a new highly ecological vehicle in Lyon in cooperation with manufacturer Renault Trucks and the local network of urban communities ‘Grand Lyon’ in order to measure the impact of the truck on the environment.

These tests are part of the European research programme FIDEUS (Freight Intelligent Delivery of Goods in European Urban Spaces) which aims at developing new concepts of transportation in urban areas to minimize the emissions.

The aim of the tests is to validate regulations covering safety, noise reduction and CO2 emissions as well as to check its operating efficiency.

This vehicle will be tested in real-life conditions by a DHL Express driver who will carry out a cycle of tests as part of his usual route when picking up and distributing DHL shipments in the city centre.

The Renault Trucks prototype is equipped with an advanced electronic measurement system and has special equipment allowing it to reduce heavy noise and polluting emissions. It also includes a telematics system informing the driver when he enters an urban area so he can activate the noise and pollution reduction system.

Since 2005, FIDEUS has brought together the players of the automotive industry, transport and logistics sectors and the cities of Hanover, Lyon and Barcelona as well as various authorities. FIDEUS is co-financed by the European Commision’s programme of research and development of sustainable ground transportation.

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FedEx Significantly Improves Less-Than-Truckload (LTL) Services

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

FedEx Freight has improved its service in key U.S. markets and FedEx National LTL now provides long-haul shippers with improved on-time service reliability after re-engineering its network, FedEx Freight, an operating company of FedEx Corp. announced today.

FedEx Freight is a provider of regional next-day, second-day and extended LTL freight services, and has cut transit times in half ” from two days to next day ” from the Las Vegas area to Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, Bakersfield and other large cities in Central California, and from Vancouver, British Columbia into the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

FedEx Freight has accelerated delivery from three days to two days in many other cities. Overall, FedEx Freight has helped its customers who depend on fast-cycle logistics by improving service standards in more than 1,000 U.S. lanes in the past year.

FedEx National LTL, provider of long-haul LTL services, has adopted a strictly scheduled line-haul operation to enhance reliability. Like FedEx Freight, FedEx National LTL employs advanced information systems that support internal planning and provide shipment visibility to customers. These improvements benefit customers with planned inventory replenishment. FedEx National LTL was created in September 2006 when FedEx acquired the business assets of the former Watkins Motor Lines.

In addition to expanding its domestic portfolio through FedEx National LTL, FedEx Freight is enhancing its Canadian service offerings with FedEx Freight Canada.

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Hongkong Post and China Post-Shenzhen Post Bureau launch Hong Kong-Shenzhen Direct Mail Service

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

Hongkong Post and China Post-Shenzhen Post Bureau today (January 16) jointly launched the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Direct Mail Service.
The service has been introduced in response to market demand for more efficient communication between Hong Kong and Shenzhen as a result of the increasingly prosperous social and economic interaction between the two places. Business enterprises of both regions can use the new service to develop cross-border business opportunities.
The implementation of the Individual Visit Scheme and the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) since 2004 has made the Mainland the biggest tourism market of Hong Kong. According to the statistics of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, there were 14 million Mainland visitors in 2006, within which Shenzhen contributed 47.2 pct, or more than six million visitors. The business as well as consumer demand for leisure, entertainment and shopping has continued growing, bringing tremendous business opportunities to business enterprises of both regions.
To introduce the new service, Hongkong Post and China Post-Shenzhen Post Bureau today jointly held a seminar on “How Direct Mail Can Help Companies Grasp the Cross-border Business Opportunities with Mainland China” at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre followed by the Agreement Signing Ceremony.

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Nokia factory closure could hit DHL jobs (Germany)

Posted by | Jan 16, 2008 | |

Jobs may be lost at DHL due to the closure of a Nokia mobile phone production plant at Bochum in north-west Germany.

The Finnish company announced yesterday it will shut down its Bochum factory due to high operating costs and transfer production to Finland and lower-cost sites in Romania and Hungary. Some 2,300 employees will lose their jobs.

But a further 2,000 jobs at a range of Nokia suppliers and sub-contractors in the region are also in danger, according to German media reports. The locally-based Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung reported that DHL is considering lying off staff as a result of the factory closure.

“When the Nokia factory closes, then it may be that jobs at DHL disappear as well,” a DHL spokesman cited. Some 200 DHL staff work directly with Nokia, and are responsible for shipping mobile phones to various destinations.

Nokia is an important international customer for DHL Express which handles transportation and delivery of the high-value mobile phones in various markets around the world.

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