Tag: Switzerland

Kenya to chair 24th UPU Congress in Geneva and future Council of Administration

Posted by | Jun 12, 2008 | |

Kenya will chair the 24th Universal Postal Congress in Geneva from 23 July to 12 August 2008 as well as the UPU’s Council of Administration for 2009-2012.

The Kenyan Government has confirmed that Mr. Bishar A. Hussein, a former Postmaster General of Kenya Post and currently Kenya’s Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, will chair the Congress.

When the UPU Council of Administration decided last February to change the venue of the 24th Universal Postal Congress from Nairobi to Geneva, it also passed a resolution inviting Kenya to chair the Congress and the future Council of Administration. Kenya has now formally accepted these invitations.

Kenya will also chair the Council of Administration for 2009-2012, a UPU body made up of 41 member countries and responsible for overseeing the organization’s finances, international postal regulations and strategic direction of the Union between Congresses.

In other Congress news, France’s Edouard Dayan, current UPU Director General, and China’s Guozhong Huang, current Deputy Director General, will run for a second four-year mandate. No other candidates have stepped forward for the top UPU jobs.
So far, Great Britain, Greece, the Russian Federation and Switzerland have announced their candidacy for the chairmanship of the Postal Operations Council, a 40-member UPU body in charge of overseeing a range of postal operational issues such as security, quality of service, technical cooperation and development, postal financial services and more. Other countries could still announce their candidacy up until Congress.

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Spain is eurozone bargain for motoring holidays in Europe

Posted by | Jun 11, 2008 | |

Spain emerges as the best value destination for UK holidaymakers in Europe in a new report by Post Office® Travel Services – despite the fact that pump prices in Switzerland have made it cheapest for unleaded petrol for the second year running.¹

In its’ Motoring on the Continent report, the Post Office® reveals that Switzerland is now the only major motoring holiday destination where unleaded fuel costs less than GBP 1 per litre.

However, the report places Spain as best value across Europe for both diesel fuel and motoring in a hire car. At GBP 1 per litre, it is also cheapest in the eurozone for unleaded petrol. Prices are around 30 per cent lower than in either Belgium or the Netherlands, which are popular motoring holiday choices for UK tourists.

The cost of unleaded petrol rose substantially in all 12 countries surveyed over the past 12 months. Increases ranged from 20 per cent in Italy and the UK to 32 per cent in France. But, although these figures make the much-debated rise in UK petrol prices look comparatively modest, the falling value of sterling masks the true position in Europe.

Post Office® head of travel Helen Warburton said: “Sterling has fallen in value by 14 per cent against the euro in the past year – and by even more in the other motoring holiday destinations. When we extracted this percentage from the price rises, we found that the UK had suffered the highest underlying price hike – 20 per cent at the pumps.

The report paints a very different picture for UK holidaymakers travelling to Europe in a diesel car. Spain is the cheapest destination by a wide margin. At 94p for a litre of diesel it is seven per cent cheaper than its nearest rival Austria (GBP 1.01) but 26 per cent lower than the UK, where diesel prices are some of Europe’s most expensive.

The differential between unleaded petrol and diesel was most marked in the UK and Sweden, with diesel costing 13p and 16p per litre more respectively. However the Post Office® found that diesel costs significantly less than unleaded fuel in four countries – the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Spain.

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Switzerland: Who will benefit from the Liberalisation of the postal sector?

Posted by | Jun 6, 2008 | |

In an interview by La Poste Magazine, regarding the future law on the liberalization of the postal sector, Ulrich Gygi, Head of Swiss Post mentioned that liberalization would be beneficial to commercial clients, whereas private customers could benefit from competition from a qualitative point of view but not necessarily through a reduction of prices.

Furthermore, a study ordered by the Swiss department for the environment, transport , energy and communication, entitled “ Consequences of the of the liberalization of the postal sector in 2011″ mentioned that only a decrease in wages could lead to price reduction…

The interview of Ulrich Gygi may be found at: http://cms.itsposta.ch/VPS/fr/06_08/
More information on the liberalisation of the postal market in Switzerlan on : http://www.uvek.admin.ch/dokumentation/00655/00895/01458/index.html?lang=fr

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UPU and Postal Union of the Americas, Spain and Portugal (PUASP) strengthen their ties

Posted by | Jun 4, 2008 | |

The Universal Postal Union (UPU) and the Postal Union of the Americas, Spain and Portugal (PUASP), through the Declaration of Santo Domingo, urge the countries of Latin America to undertake postal sector reform.

The postal sector in Latin America, made up of public operators and a large number of private enterprises, is highly fragmented. With UPU assistance, postal sector reform has now been launched in nine Latin American countries, starting off with Costa Rica in 2005.

The integrated postal reform and development plans (IPDPs) replace an approach based solely on the restructuring of the public postal operator. These national plans, which take particular account of the universal postal service and of the regulatory and legal framework, provide for the whole sector. Since 2007, Latin America also has a regional development plan aimed at coordinating the activities of the various postal sector stakeholders.

At the regional conference of government authorities responsible for supervising the postal sector in the PUASP member countries, held in Santo Domingo (Dominican Rep.) on 22 and 23 May 2008, UPU Director General Edouard Dayan and PUASP Secretary General Serrana Bassini casci reiterated their commitment to cooperate in the development and good governance of the postal sector.

In a joint declaration signed by 22 of the region’s countries and territories, the UPU and PUASP encourage those countries which have not yet formulated an IPDP to do so, in conjunction with the UPU.

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Better standards and harmonized laws will promote e-commerce

Posted by | Jun 2, 2008 | |

In a meeting held on 22 May, government experts and representatives of non-governmental organizations and international organizations joined members of the Action Line on e-business, established following the World Summit on the Information Society in 2005, to find solutions to help e-commerce prosper in developing countries.

The UPU, the International Trade Centre (ITC), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the International Labour Organization lead the Action Line on e-business.

High-level executives from UNCTAD and ITC, as well as the UPU Deputy Director General, Guozhong HUANG, highlighted the opportunities offered by the rapid progress in the use of new technologies around the world. The UPU led the session about challenges, opportunities and concrete solutions for SMEs wanting to start e-commerce activities. A presentation of the Alibaba.com e-marketplace, for business to business (B2B) e-commerce, showed how this platform has helped several small businesses expand their online activities. China Post also described its e-commerce activities and strategic partnership with Alibaba.com in the areas of logistics and online payments. They also highlighted the new opportunities provided by “m-commerce” (or commerce through a mobile phone) as a starting point for e-commerce activities, particularly because mobile technologies facilitate access to information and its distribution.

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