UPU News : E-commerce and efficiency top of agenda in Europe and CIS region

24.06.2015 - Improving operational efficiency and e-commerce development were identified as a top-level priorities by postal delegates at the Europe and CIS regional strategy conference.

Participants were urged to embrace change, including new technologies and business models, in a speech by UPU Director General Bishar A. Hussein. He stressed the need for innovations that meet customer demands, while also calling for increased integration of post offices worldwide to create a seamless universal supply chain. 

“The UPU and Posts will reinvent themselves to deliver innovative, integrated and inclusive development solutions, and will remain relevant now and into the future,” he said.  

“We will bring down the barriers to cross-border postal deliveries,” he underlined, adding that solutions aimed at improving postal integration include the UPU’s new e-commerce programme, ECOMPRO. 

Hussein also called on the postal sector to promote better economic, financial and social inclusion. 

Priorities 

 

Priorities adopted by stakeholders at the conference build upon ongoing efforts for development in the region, which include improving quality of service and efficiency and international e-commerce development. 

The focus on these areas of intervention emerged as Posts in the region encountered market reforms allowing competition by the private sector in areas that were recently the preserve of public monopolies. This liberalization, along with new technologies and changes in consumer demand, prompted designated operators to address market-oriented issues, including quality of service.    

Second-level priorities chosen by delegates at the conference in Minsk included e-services and diversification. The latter was identified in the UPU Regional Development Plan for the current work cycle as necessary for future development “in order to mitigate the decrease in letter-mail volumes.” 

Other second-level priorities adopted by delegates at the conference included financial services and postal-sector development. 

Conferences worldwide

 

The two-day conference, which was held in Minsk, Belarus, on June 16-17, reflected themes from the recent Latin American and African conferences, which took place in May and June. Counterparts from these two regions also identified efficient operations and e-commerce as areas of focus for the next work cycle from 2017-2020. 

These regional gatherings are setting the stage for the 2016 UPU Congress in Istanbul, Turkey, where the roadmap for the next work-cycle will be adopted. The next regional strategy conference, taking place in late August, will bring together delegates from Asia-Pacific in Bangkok, Thailand.