Eight years ago, the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development developed a draft law on postal service with the purpose to introduce a new regulatory framework in the postal sector. However, either the interested parties or the companies, which are directly involved in the reform of the postal sector have not seen the final version of the code.
The final meeting between the business and Ministry of Economy was held in summer, but the business declares that the main issue still remains unresolved. According to the draft code, universal and courier services are separated, but if universal services will be unprofitable, the businesses will be obliged to finance it, which the private sector does not agree with.
"In the current version, which was provided to us by the Ministry of Economy as a working version, it is very clear that universal and courier services are separated, but if universal service company is unprofitable, the courier services will be oblige to fund it. This is absolutely unacceptable and most importantly unprecedented,” said Nino Menteshashvili, Director of Fedex Georgia.
Apart from the fact that under the new law, a monopolist appears on the market in the form of a universal service operator, Georgian Post, this is even more unfair in the conditions when the state announces its privatization, which shows the logical expectation that one ordinary private business will have privilege over other business entities. They will have to finance loss-making position of universal service operator.
"In this case, we are creating a monopolist. It is not good for the industry of the country. We do not have such example in developed countries, although we can meet such cases in Turkmenistan. We have been fighting for 8 years not to get Turkmenization in the postal service sector,”- said Nino Menteshashvili.
