Express mail and delivery firms diversifying in the Czech Republic
With the European and Czech market of postal services slated to be fully liberalized by 2009, the Czech state-owned post office Ceska posta (CP) continues broad remedies to withstand the impact of competition, which is driven by the market to boost services, increase quality and reduce prices.
“Within two years, Ceska posta will be a different company,” said Ivo Mravinac, the director of communications with CP. The ongoing changes are concentrated on two major levels — the internal restructuring of the company and the conversion into joint-stock company.
For the past couple of years, the Czech government harbored plans to privatize the company and finally last fall the board of trustees of CP charged company CEO Karel Kratina to work out the details of the transformation into a state owned joint-stock company. “There’s no time-schedule for the whole process or for its individual steps,” Mravinac said, adding that the final deadline is Jan. 1, 2009, when the Czech postal services market is to be fully liberalized, but that the company hopes to reach its target sooner.
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