![]() ![]() ![]() An eleventh-hour extraordinary congress of the UPU (only the third in its long history) has been taking place in Geneva this week in an attempt to prevent a potential US ‘Pexit’ in just a few weeks’ time. So, although the clock may not actually have been cleaned, it is certainly ticking. If the US did not get its way, it would leave. (I had to Google that expression, apparently it means ‘to get thrashed’ or ‘to be totally defeated’).ĭescribing the UPU’s system as ‘antiquated’, Peter Navarro said the US wanted to set its own postal rates for incoming mail, and was encouraging other countries to do the same. “The Universal Postal Union has a system in which Americans are just getting their clocks cleaned,” harrumphed US trade negotiator Peter Navarro in an interview with Fox News. Last October, he said the US would withdraw from the UPU in one year’s time. It’s a business worth billions of dollars, and it has infuriated President Trump, who already thinks China has an unfair advantage and is therefore pursuing all sorts of trade disputes with Beijing. The dues paid by the US, which is classed of course as a developed country, subsidize the cost of their delivery to eager US consumers. With that explosion of e-commerce, companies in China, which is still designated by the UPU as a developing country, can send tonnes of goods, at cheap postal rates set by the UPU, to the United States. The Universal Postal Union headquarters in Bern Keystone / Gaetan Bally “Everybody’s buying online, increasingly online from other countries, and then suddenly what you pay to get your goods from another part of the world is becoming more and more relevant both for consumers, for businesses, and of course therefore for governments and other players in the industry.” “E-commerce is really transforming the world,” explains Paul Needham, editor of the postal industry journal CEP. E-commerce worth billionsĪnd of course, international post in the 21 st century is not the same as it was in the 19 th. ![]() This is known as the ‘terminal dues’ system. To ensure that developing countries are not disadvantaged by unaffordable postal rates, wealthier countries pay more. The UPU has 192 member states, any citizen of any one of them can buy stamps in his or her own country and know that those stamps will ensure their letter or parcel is delivered to any other country in the world.īut this is where it gets tricky: the cost of stamps for a parcel from Cambodia to Switzerland is not as much as the other way around, neither is it as much as a parcel from Iowa to Illinois. When the UPU became a UN agency in 1948, amid the post-war enthusiasm for fairness and universality, there was no real disagreement. For example, the banker posting a letter from one side of Zurich to the other pays the same price for a stamp as the farmer in Glarus posting one to her student daughter in Geneva. It’s a perfectly reasonable goal, and one that most national postal systems operate within their own territories as well. The UPU’s role was, and remains, to regulate this international communication, and ensure that postal rates are fair and affordable. We deliver people’s aspirations and hopes to their loved ones.” We have seven million men and women who knock on your doors. “We reach the furthest reaches of this planet. “This is an organisation that serves humanity like no other organisation,” enthuses its Director General Bishar Hussein. Families divided by waves of migration wanted to write to each other, to send gifts and supplies from Scotland to Canada, from Poland to New Jersey, from Borneo to Amsterdam. Founded in 1874, its mandate is to regulate the booming new (in the 19 th century) international communication of letters and parcels. ![]() In fact, the UPU is older than the UN itself. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |