Guozhong HUANG

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ROLE OF THE UPUIN THE NEW CENTURY

• Guozhong HUANG
• Chairman of CA, UPU
• Director GeneralDepartment of International
  Cooperation
• State Postal Bureau
• Peoples Republic of China

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Contents

• 1. History of Development Change
• 2. New Challenges
• 3. Role in the New Century
• 4. Future Direction

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1. History of Development Change

• History in brief
• Organizational changes
• Changes since 1999

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History in Brief

• 1874 Foundation of the General Postal Union
• 1878 Renamed as Universal Postal Union
• 1947 Became a specialized organization of the
  United Nations
• 1964 Recast the general structure of the UPU
  Acts
• 1969 Introduced Terminal Dues system
• 1999 Created a new provision in the
  Convention---Universal Postal Service

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Organizational Changes
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Major Changes since 1999

• Revised mission of the UPU, making it more
  adaptable to the new environment
• Approved proposals of HLG
• establish a new body of the UPU---Consultative
  Committee
• shorten the interval between two Congresses from
  5 years to 4 years
• if the next congress decides so
• External members of AG enjoy the right of
  participating in CA and POC meetings as observers

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2. New Challenges

• Rapid changes of the postal business
  environment
• Greater pressure for postal reform
• Different expectations for the UPU
• Greater voice from stakeholders on the
  participation in UPU affairs

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Rapid Changes in the Environment

• Liberalization of postal market
• Competition from
• non-postal operators, and
• postal administrations of other country
• Advancement of technology
• Diversification of customer needs

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Greater Pressure for Postal Reform

• Pressure from government
• unwilling to subsidize Posts continuously
• Pressure from private sectors
• wishing to enter postal market
• Pressure from customers
• expecting better services

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Different Expectations for the UPU

• Most DCs
• hope the UPU to play a dominant role in the
  provision of universal postal service
• Some ICs and DCs with fairly good economy
• want the UPU to promote postal reform and open up
  postal market gradually
• Few ICs
• expect the UPU to catalyze the opening up of the
  postal market

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Greater Voice from Stakeholders

• Non-Post operators
• Non-governmental organizations
• Customers
• Postal suppliers
• Postal partners

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3. Role in the New Century

• Reliable guarantee for the basic right to
  communicate
• Platform for technical cooperation
• Linkage between Posts and stakeholders
• Authority for international postal standards
• Driver of postal reform
• Legislature for international postal Acts

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Reliable Guarantee for the Basic Right to
Communicate

• Guarantee the basic right to communicate the
  UPUs supreme duty
• Universal postal service embodied in
  Convention and Beijing Postal Strategy
• Considerable amount of people can not access
  basic postal services at this stage
• Coordinate policies on the provision of
  universal postal service among UPU members

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Platform for Technical Cooperation

• One of the Unions objective since 1964
• An efficient method to narrow gaps between ICs
  and DCs
• Recent achievement
• 124 MIPs (1996-2000)
• Quality of Service Fund 20 million USD each year
• More projects required on technology,
  equipment, human resource development, etc.

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Linkage between Posts and Stakeholders

• Interaction between Posts and Stakeholders may
• extend its representativeness in physical
  delivery market
• meet the changing needs of customers
• obtain more ideas on postal reform and
  development
• Beijing Postal Strategy set one of its six
  objectives to strengthen and broaden cooperation
  and interaction among the stakeholders of the
  postal industry

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Authority for International Postal Standards

• International postal services require standards
• Services based on new equipment and technology
  can not even operate without standards
• UPU is more authoritive than any other postal
  administration in setting up international
  postal standards
• UPU will continue its unique role in this field

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Driver of Postal Reform

• Persuade governments and other institutions to
  raise funds and support postal reform
• Provide Posts and stakeholders a platform to
• share experiences and best practice on reform
• debate issues of common concern
• Constitute development strategy and provide
  instructive comments

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Legislature for International Postal Acts

• Deregulation does not mean less regulation
• Market liberalization and economic
  globalization requires international legislative
  authority
• UPU Acts must adapt to the new changes of the
  postal market
• WTO negotiation on trade in services covers
  postal services

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4. Future Direction

• An inter-governmental organization
• An organization that is gradually opened-up
• A coordinating organization
• An effective organization

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An Inter-Governmental Organization

• Only governments of UPU members are competent
  to
• fulfil UPUs noble mission
• guarantee Single Postal Territory
• provide Universal Postal Service
• enforce agreements signed by member countries
• Most UPU members insist that the UPU remain be
  an inter-governmental organization

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An Organization That Is Gradually Opening-up

• Already opened to some stakeholders
• A new bodyConsultative Committee will be
  established in 2004 (next Congress)
• Benefits by opening-up
• obtain expertise to strenthen and improve its
  activities
• exchange ideas on best practice and benchmarking
• keep the UPU young and vigorous
• benefit from other fields
• Considering the situation and interests of all
  member countries, the UPU should be opened up
  gradually

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A Coordinating Organization

• International postal service requires
  cooperation among postal operators and their
  partners
• Economic interest of each partner shall be
  dealt with equally and reasonably
• UPU must make profound research on various
  economic problems, e.g. terminal dues
• UPU should coordinate with other international
  organizations

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An Efficient Organization

• Fast changing environment requires from UPU
• fast decision making mechanism
• suitable organizational structure
• simplified working process
• qualified working team
• efficient headquarters
• The UPU will be an efficient organization with
  prompt reaction to the outside world

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Conclusion

• UPU will face more challenges in the new century
• UPU must adapt to the environment
• The role of the UPU is irreplaceable in the
  future
• The UPU shall be
• An inter-governmental organization
• An organization that is gradually opening-up
• A coordinating organization
• An effective organization

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THANK YOU!