TAIPEI, Taiwan -- "When I put on the
green uniform, I can feel the trust that people have in me," said Du
Wan-yi, a 63-year-old postman who works in New Taipei City.
Having been delivering mail for
the past 46 years, Du said he has seen a lot of changes in recent years:
less appreciation for hand-written letters and more diversification of
the services post offices provide.
But he said: "The care is still there."
Throughout his career, Du has been voluntarily visiting senior citizens
who live alone. He's gotten to know them while delivering mail.
"But times have changed, and we have to change, too," said Du.
Indeed, Taiwan's 119-year-old postal service Chunghwa Post has
undergone significant changes in recent years. From simply delivering
mail when it was first founded in China in 1896, and to offering banking
and insurance services starting in the 1930s, its services have now
expanded to selling micro-insurance to blue-collar workers, offering
free delivery of fruits for farmers, and much more.
And unlike
postal services operating in the red in other countries, due to
increased use of e-mail and a decline in traditional mail, Chunghwa Post
has been making a profit in recent years.
Many of the changes
were brought about by its chairman Philip Ong, who sees his background
in foreign affairs as an advantage in pushing for new business models.
Ong, the Taiwan government's former representative to India, said his
experience working in overseas cities such as New York and Geneva, has
made him more open to new ideas and quicker to adapt to changes.
Change was needed in face of the biggest challenge facing the postal
service — the dwindling mail business. The volume of mail the post
office collects has decreased by 2-3 percent annually in recent years
because more people have turned to email, messaging apps or free
Internet calling services.
As a result, the overall mail
business of Chunghwa Post has been sustaining an annual loss of NT$3
billion (US$97 million), which made manpower reallocation for the 9,000
postal workers and a redesign of postal routes necessary, Ong said.
Only the small parcel business is doing well due to the emergence of
e-commerce, Ong said, adding that Chunghwa Post will allocate more
resources to that section.
However, compared with other
struggling postal services around the world, including the United States
Postal Service (USPS), Chunghwa Post is "doing relatively OK," Ong
said.
The USPS has been losing gigantic amounts of money despite
cost-cutting efforts such as layoffs and closures of thousands of post
offices. According to its financial statement, in the first quarter of
2015, the USPS recorded a net loss of nearly US$1.5 billion.
In
the case of Chunghwa Post, it is making up for its core business being
in the red by more aggressively investing overseas with its Postal
Capital fund, which currently stands at some NT$6.4 trillion.
Through that strategy, the postal service was able to earn NT$12.1
billion in overall profit last year, which Ong said has allowed Chunghwa
Post to continue providing its mailing service even though it's a
money-losing business.
Source : http://www.chinapost.com.tw/
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