Fourteen Posts from Europe and the Arab region have created the seventeenth restricted union of the Universal Postal Union.
Sherif Battisha, Egypt Post’s deputy chairman, has been named chairman of the new entity’s management board, while Stefano Gori, Poste Italiane’s head of international business strategy, is its secretary general. Both were appointed during the first ever Postal Union for the Mediterranean general assembly, held on 16 March in Rome.
According to Article 8 of the UPU Constitution, member countries or their designated operators are allowed to set up regional postal communities, known as restricted unions.
UPU Director General Edouard Dayan welcomed the creation of this new organization covering the Euro-Mediterranean area, an important region for the development of communication and trade. “Postal services must be part of the plan to create a zone of peace and prosperity on both shores of the Mediterranean,” he said in Rome.
Economic development
The Postal Union for the Mediterranean’s main goals include defending its members’ collective interests, facilitating the exchange of knowledge, and strengthening the interoperability of postal services. In practical terms, the body is dedicated to improving the quality of letter-post, parcel-post and money transfer services.
Based in Rome, the new restricted union consists of the Posts of Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Monaco, Morocco, Palestine, Slovenia, Syria and Turkey.
“The main challenge is to optimize the postal sector’s full potential for the economic development of countries throughout the Mediterranean,” added Dayan. He welcomed the work that the new union would focus on in two areas in particular: trade development among small- and medium-sized businesses, and money transfers.
Several Latin American Posts have already had considerable success with postal network export projects, and the UPU wants to help other regions implement similar models.
As for money transfers, Posts in the Mediterranean zone could help to improve services and lower transaction costs. According to the European Investment Bank, each year seven billion euros is sent from Europe to eight Mediterranean countries. This amount is greater than the total net foreign direct investment and public development aid flows going to these same countries, noted the UPU chief.