The Universal Postal Union is working toward improving worldwide mail delivery standards while reforming postal services and increasing cooperation and interaction with mailing industry stakeholders and promoting the development of direct mail in developing countries, UPU outgoing president Thomas Leavey told a session at the Direct Marketing Association Annual Conference & Exhibition Monday.
He reported on what happened at the recently concluded meeting of United Nations organization — which sets international postal agreements for 190 countries — in Bucharest, Romania.
One thing the UPU did do was to set a process in motion to foster the growth of direct mail in developing countries and letting them learn at such things as presorting and volume discounts. To this end, it recently named Charles Prescott, vice president of international business development, chairman of its newly formed consultative committee devoted to private sector stakeholders.
In face of declining mail volumes worldwide, the UPU tried to has out several agreements to help postal services survived in the 21st Century.
One decision the UPU made was to try and improve the standard for delivery of international letters to five days after they are mailed, he said. While the U.S. and European countries can deliver international mail in three days of being posted, many nations in Africa, say, have a much more difficult time.
In addition, the UPU is trying to move toward standardizing the terminal dues, or the compensation different postal administrations pay each other for delivery of International mail based on their status as developing or industrialized. Currently, U.S. and European countries can have them delivered in as few s three days but many developing countries in Africa, say, have a difficult time achieving this.
Overall, Leavey predicted that postal liberalization will become more prevalent and that there will be fewer public entities as postal services merge or become privatized and that e electronic alternatives will continue to cut into mail.
But mail won’t go away. “At least not in the next 25 years,” he quipped.
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