Congress deliberations began with the Opening Plenary this morning, where delegates came together to elect the Congress Chairman and other Congress body leaders.
Delegates elected PTT Corporation CEO Kenan Bozgeyik as Chairman, on behalf of the host country, Turkey. The Chairmanship was awarded to Bozgeyik by Qatar Post CEO Faleh Mohammad Al-Naemi, on behalf of 2012 Congress host Qatar.
“There have been many developments in the last four years. Our postal sector will continue on its path under new principles and focus on developing customer-oriented services,” said Bozgeyik.
“During the next three weeks, you will be dealing with several important proposals mainly on the postal business, particularly in the improvement of the postal supply chain and operations,” said UPU Director General Bishar A. Hussein.
“The other proposal that I expect will draw substantial interest is the one on reform of the Union … I hope this time round, all members will support the Council of Administration proposal that is aimed to help transform our Union to create more efficiency, fair geographical representation in the decision-making process of the union as well as save cost of our operations,” he added.
Other Appointments
During the Opening Plenary, member countries also officially appointed the following chairs and vice-chairs:
Vice-Chairmen of Congress
Mr Wilfredo Lopez Rodriguez, Cuba
Ms Irina Saksonova, Belarus
Ms Hongyan Shen, China (People's Rep.)
Mr Francis W. Wangusi, Kenya
Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen of Congress Committees
Committee 1 (Credentials)
Chair: Mr Joseph Murphy, USA
Vice-Chair: Ms Padmagandha Mishra, India
Committee 2 (Finance)
Chair: Mr Hiroshi Nakayama, Japan
Vice-Chair: Mr Mauricio Rojas, Costa Rica
Committee 3 (General and Policy Matters)
Chair: Ms Nonkqubela Jordan-Dyani, South Africa
Vice-Chair: Mr Jack Hamande, Belgium
Committee 4 (Convention)
Chair: Mr Siva Somasundram, Australia
Vice-Chair: Mr Alain Benoît Itoua, Congo
Committee 5 (Postal Payment Services)
Chair: Mr Vladimir Salakhutdinov, Russian Federation
Vice-Chair: Mr Germa?n Va?zquez Asenjo, Spain
Committee 6 (Development Cooperation)
Chair: Mr Jean-Paul Forceville, France
Vice-Chair: Mr Sami Freej Alowedi, Eng., Saudi Arabia
Committee 7 (Drafting)
Chair: Mr Abdeladim El Massoudi, Morocco
Vice-Chair: Mr Aimé Theubet, Switzerland
Committees in session
The day also marked the beginning of Congress Committee meetings, beginning with Committee 3.
Focused on general policy matters, Committee 3 will deliberate on key proposals such as the Reform of the Union, Integrated Product Plan (IPP) and the Istanbul World Postal Strategy.
The first session's discussions focused specifically on the IPP, which proposes changes to the classification of items as documents or as goods. It would also require Posts to fix barcodes on small packets containing goods.
This would help facilitate the supply chain process as volumes of letters containing goods are on the rise.
"The UPU urgently needs to confront challenges, adapt quickly to the marketplace, make effective use of its strengths, and address its weaknesses. Failure to do so will result in a continuing increase in the number of designated operators moving traffic outside the UPU network," remarked Hussein.
"I urge you to take this on board when considering your approval of the Integrated Product Plan," he said.
Committees 1, 4, 5 and 6 will also begin their discussions this week. Committee 3 deliberations will resume next week.