Brazilian postal operator Correios looks set to expand its logistics operations in competitionto international and domestic express companies in one of the world’s most promising growth markets
while UPS is reportedly planning more flights to the country.Within the next few weeks the Brazilian government will publish plans enabling Correios to offer“commercial logistics services” and thus compete with the likes of FedEx, DHL, UPS, TNT andBrazilian operators such as Cometa, TAM Cargo and VarigLog, business newspaper Valor Economicoreported recently.
Carlos Henrique Custódio, president of Correios, aims to diversify into the logistics sector,develop e-commerce activities and offer more financial services to compensate for the mail declineand avoid the company having stagnating revenues and running up large deficits like in the USA orother Latin American countries, it wrote. A key move will be to transform the postal organisationinto a limited company that is able to set up subsidiaries or to have private shareholders.
Moreover, the Correios chief is interested in setting up a cargo airline venture to providedomestic airlift capacity and end its reliance on a diverse group of carriers, some of which aresmall and financially weak. One potential partner is cargo airline Absa Cargo, a subsidiary ofChilean group LAN, which is already in talks over the idea, the newspaper added.
Correios itself has announced plans to modernise its vehicle fleet with 261 new vans forresidential and business collections and deliveries. This is part of a larger long-term fleetmodernisation programme designed to give the Brazilian postal operator a fleet of 13,000 newdelivery vehicles, including trucks, vans and motorbikes.
Meanwhile, UPS is planning to increase air capacity between the USA and Brazil by 30% with theintroduction of larger freighters, Valor Economico reported separately. UPS will replace theexisting B757 service with two B767 freighters, thus increasing capacity by 30%, it cited DanBrutto, head of UPS’ international activities, as saying on a recent visit to the country. Thiswill give UPS eight weekly flights to Sao Paulo’s Viracopos airport.
Last year UPS launched domestic express services in Brazil with local deliveries in several keycities, including Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre and Campinas.
