Latvia Post unveils plans to expand its parcel locker network
In August 2023, Latvijas Pasts will install the 200th parcel locker in its parcel locker network; next year, the number of parcel lockers will increase to 420.
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Latvia Post: The active modernisation of services has led to “even higher results”
In the first half of 2023, the net turnover of Latvijas Pasts reached 55.9 million euro, which is 17.5% more than in the corresponding period last year.
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WMX Europe Kicks Off tomorrow!
From 16-17 June, the industry’s favourite European post and parcel conference, WMX Europe, will hit your screens 0900 – 1700 CEST. In response to COVID-19, it is taking place virtually.
Read MoreLatvian post company now licks stamps for a fee
Latvian state-owned postal company Latvijas Pasts has launched a new paid service of helping customers to prepare their mail, including licking stamps. As of August, post offices in the small Baltic nation have been charging 0.03 lats (5.8 US cents) for gluing stamps to envelopes.
Arranging mail takes additional time and resources, spokeswoman Inese Kreicberga told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
“Postal regulations provide that a client is responsible for preparing a letter to be sent, while the post delivers it,” Kreicberga said.
“To those clients who want postal operators to help them with drawing up a letter, the post can offer such a service for payment,” she said.
Latvijas Pasts has been plagued by financial troubles in recent months. The second least profitable company in the country, Latvijas Pasts lost 4.87 million lats (USD 9.56 million) in 2006, according to a report published earlier this week.
The company has raised rates for money order and faced a threat of employee strike at the end of July.
The government of Latvia is considering converting post offices throughout the country into postal banks, merging postal offices with bank branches in approximately 700 locations in the European Union Baltic country of 2.3 million people.
Read MoreLatvian Post is most likely to have to raise prices
Latvian Post(LP) will most probably have to raise the prices of its services, Latvian Transport Minister Ainars Slesers said on Tuesday.
LP will have to take several important decisions concerning the future development of the company. The minister said that he has a development plan to offer tot he company management, but he would like to see the plan developed by LP first. The minister said that he would meet LP management on Wednesday to discuss the action plan that the company will present concerning its further development.
“There are lots of post offices that make loss and will never make profit. The question is if the company has to sustain such branches? If they have to be sustained, the next question is — How?” said the minister, adding that the unprofitable post offices are sustained by the post workers. He admitted that press delivery price problem is the same, as these have not increased lately on the face of increasing costs.
Slesers said that a consideration should be given to the postal services to be subsidized by the government and the ones to be sustained by the company itself.
He said that the privatization of LP is not an issue at the moment. It is not planned and will not be allowed, but as postal liberalization is on the approach in the EU, possibly, decisions will have to be taken to attraction of private partnership to separate postal functions, not the post in general.
Slesers did not want to comment on the necessity of the resignation of Gints Skodovs, the head of LP.
Latvian Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis during a government session on Tuesday said that the salaries of the unprofitable offices and postal workers in general is the issue of the company management as the management of the company receives the salaries, which are among the highest in the country and, thus have to solve the crisis situation.
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