UPU

UPU urges quality focus among Asia Pacific postal operators
Thursday, September 5th, 2013
The Universal Postal Union has called on postal operators in the Asian-Pacific region to “live up to customer expectations”.

The UN-affiliated agency representing the postal administrations of 198 countries said Posts need to “move with the times” and improve the quality of their service levels.

The comments came as UPU director general Bishar A Hussein addressed a gathering of more than 40 nations in New Delhi, India, at the quadrennial congress of the Asian Pacific Postal Union, a restricted union within the UPU.

Hussein said posts were now changing by adopting new technologies, and said operators had to take advantage of the boom in parcel services resulting from the growing popularity of e-commerce.

He said of the innovation within posts: “The ripple effect of this on society and the economy is immeasurable.”

Addressing the gathering of more than 40 nations, Indian President Pranab Mukherjee said there was a changing global scenario where postal administrations around the world had to “think differently”.

“There is a rising public expectation about postal services conforming to the same standards of quality, accountability and transparency that are being provided by other market players,” he said.

The UPU said quality of services was “crucial” for the postal sector’s future, adding that the issue was “top priority” for Posts in the Asia-Pacific region under its 2013-16 world postal strategy.

The region has almost half of the world’s postal establishments, the UPU noted, including more than 310,000 post offices. China, Korea and India together account for about 86% of domestic mail volumes in the region.

The agency said domestic parcel traffic in the region is growing at a rate of 3.8% a year, compared to a worldwide average of 2.1%, but that international parcel volumes grew by 3% annually from 2006 to 2011, compared to a worldwide growth of 5.3%.

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