Tag: France

EU launches state aid probe into former SNCF division Sernam

Posted by | Jul 16, 2008 | |

The European Commission said it is launching an investigation into aid granted by the French authorities to Sernam, the former road and rail transport services operator of France’s national railway company, SNCF.

The investigation will focus on the implementation by France of a 2004 commission decision authorising aid of 503 million euros to Sernam, which also required repayment of 41 million euros already received by the company.

The commission has received complaints Sernam was not sold in accordance with the conditions imposed by that same decision and the 41 million euros has not been paid back.

The launching of this in-depth investigation will allow all interested parties to express their points of view. It does not prejudge the Commission’s final decision.

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UPS expands in France

Posted by | Jul 15, 2008 | |

UPS wants to expand its presence in France with the opening of two new branches this year. In addition, the company expects to double the number of its employees in the next five years with the aim to become an important market player in the country, the French newspaper La Tribune reported.

To expand its regional network, UPS plans to open two new branches in France this year increasing the total number to 39 in the country, after having doubled the capacity of its road hub in Chilly-Mazarin, a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris. Moreover, the company opened a new training centre in Rennes two months ago destined for future UPS managers to be responsible for Western Europe.

Even though UPS doesn’t have a strong position on the French market yet, it increased its turnover in France by 13 pct last year with the market growing by 4 pct. In the first 4 months of 2008, the turnover of the company increased by 16 pct.

Separately, UPS plans to recruit 300 new employees this year and expects to double its staff in 5 years. The company currently counts 2400 employees in France 800 of which are drivers.

To establish itself on a very competitive and mature market in France, UPS mainly targets small and medium sized enterprises (SME) focusing on luxury goods, vine, clothes, perfume etc. Due to booming e-commerce, UPS also tries to move increasingly towards private customers. Following this trend, the B2C sector is estimated to make up 20 pct of the turnover this year compared to 10 pct in 2007.

Established in France since 1981, UPS hasn’t been very active on the French market until now as it was busy expanding its presence in Asia and Eastern Europe. In China alone, the company opened 37 centres within one year.

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International Freight Industry to shift from air transport to sea and rail

Posted by | Jul 15, 2008 | |

Australia Post’s Managing Director, Graeme John, foresees cutbacks on flights and a shift towards sea and rail deliveries with regard to the annual meeting of the Kahala Posts Group last week.

John said that growth in international freight from consumer goods such as electronics had been managed on a “just in time” basis, with air delivery preferred to other means of transport due to its speed advantage. But that approach was no longer viable as global warming would have an enormous influence on the postal industry worldwide increasing the pressure to shift towards less environmentally-damaging modes of delivery.

The Kahala Posts Group (KPG) which is the alliance of nine national postal administrations in Australia, the United States, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Spain, France and Britain, was founded five years ago and named after a resort the members stayed at during their founding meeting in Hawaii. The postal operators have since launched an upgraded, guarantee-based international service between their respective countries and territories.

Therefore, Kahala Group focused instead on reliability of delivery. But to keep the reliability of the service, the Kahala members had to upgrade their tracking systems. It also required the creation of a “delivery calculator”, a database of eight billion postcodes that allows a customer to walk into any postal outlet, list their destination and be told a precise time window during which a parcel would be delivered, Brisbane Times further reported.

While the private couriers already offered that service and faster delivery, the Kahala members undercut their prices by 40 pct to 50 pct to stay competitive in price.

John further said that a worsening economic environment could prompt a trend to slower “deferred” delivery services.

The Kahala partnership is also moving beyond postage, with Australia Post, China Post and the US Postal Service preparing to launch a group-owned money transfer service to compete against Western Union, Brisbane Times added.

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EU postal operators failing to communicate

Posted by | Jul 14, 2008 | |

Swiss Post and Royal Mail have been praised for their regular news bulletins by Hellmail, the European postal industry news site.

Editor for Hellmail, Steve Lawson, said “Many Euro postal operators have been rather slow to market themselves and communicate in the wider context since Liberalisation began.” he said.

He said that some postal operators should be praised for their efforts. Swiss Post particularly, with a whole section devoted to media communications including an impressive image library. Royal Mail too has a dedicated press office with almost daily news.

“Oddly, Lithuania scores well in terms of news output, but France’s La Poste, Turkey, Slovakia and Slovenia fall far behind. Italy, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria rarely update their news, The Ukraine, Latvia and Luxembourg have no translation facility at all for news, and Romania stopped producing translated news altogether in 2007.”

Hellmail found that most web sites were reasonably easy to navigate except for Denmark & Greece which had a Flash into that was very difficult to get past. Swiss Post and Royal Mail scored the highest for news output, closely followed by DHL, Malta, and Russian Post.

“Clearly there is much room for improvement and we have emailed most of these operators asking them to look closer at the way they communicate. Obviously some European postal services are heavily tied into state ownership, and in some cases, political regimes, but even so, with Europe pushing for closer ties under postal liberalisation, some countries have simply failed to exploit the potential here. From our perspective, its so important that smaller European countries can be heard. We really do want to know what they’re about.” he said.

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