World: Postal stakeholders meet to discuss sector’s present and future

By Henry Neondo

Nairobi, Kenya-- More than 550 delegates from 116 countries representing the worldwide postal sector have concluded a meeting at United Nations headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya to ponder the sector’s present and future.

The two-day conference was an important forum for delegates to take stock of progress made in achieving the objectives of the current world postal strategy.

Kenya’s vice-president, Kalonzo Musyoka, officially opened the Universal Postal Union’s 2010 Strategy Conference, the first time it has been held on African soil.

“The Strategy Conference is an opportunity to look at the current trends impacting our sector, including those in the areas of technology, customer behaviour, services diversification and postal financial services. We will also look at new economic models and try to better understand the role of postal services in our society. The agents of change are numerous in this period of radical transformation for the postal sector,” said the director general of the Universal Postal Union, Edouard Dayan.

The strategy, adopted in 2008, focuses on improving the quality and efficiency of the worldwide postal network, stimulating a universal postal service adapted to the social, economic and technological environment, promoting the sector’s sustainable development and fostering the growth of the postal markets and services.

“With the rapid growth of electronic communication, consumers’ communication needs are expected to change significantly in the coming years,” said Kenya’s minister for  information and communications, Samuel Poghisio. “It is essential to establish a modern and dynamic concept of the universal postal service, which better corresponds to the demands of today’s consumers. It is time to create a modern and flexible universal service obligation that enables consumers to better take part in postal services. Postal operators should be stimulated to improve and innovate upon the existing universal postal service, rather than being hindered by too restrictive regulations.”

Innovation and service diversification are important themes of the Strategy Conference, as one aim is to start defining the contours of the next world postal strategy UPU members will be expected to adopt at the next Universal Postal Congress in Doha.

The postal sector is lifting itself out of an economic crisis that has accentuated a trend of declining letter-post volumes, but also provided new opportunities for national Posts in business segments such as parcels and financial services. Well before the economic crisis occurred, many Posts around the world had started to diversify their services, expanding into new areas such as logistics management, e-commerce and e-government.

During the crisis, several Posts, especially those managing postal financial institutions, witnessed exponential growth in the number of customers and accounts as a result of consumers’ loss of trust in traditional banking institutions. E-commerce, often responsible for the growth of parcel volumes in many Posts, also continued to thrive despite the crisis.