Russian Post has signed a strategic partnership with Poste Italiane and its technologicalpartner Selex Elsag, strengthening the existing cooperation between the two postal operators on the
occasion of Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti’s visit to Moscow this week.Aiming to modernise Russian Post’s postal logistics network, the agreement was signed by PosteItaliane CEO Massimo Sarmi and Russian Post chief Alexander Kiselyov, with Monti and Russian PrimeMinister Dmitry Medvedev also attending the ceremony.
Russian Post said Italy was currently one of the most technologically developed countries, withits innovative solutions being widely used across the globe. Through the new agreement, the Italianpostal operator wants to support Russian Post with the introduction of advanced forms of payment,financial services and digital communication solutions. This represents a new operational phase ofthe collaboration programme between the two companies launched in 2010.
The agreement includes the technological upgrade of Russia’s postal network, comprising 42,000post offices across the country, with the aim of improving its efficiency, while consideringRussia’s geographical peculiarities.
Italian Post stressed that above all, it lays the groundwork for creating a range of serviceswith high social value that can facilitate transactions between people, businesses and the publicsector. It also wants to implement an innovative model for services targeting individuals, such asadministrative issues, health and payments, with the aim of minimising the gap between thepopulation and the government in such a huge country like Russia.
Sarmi confirmed that the technological development of Russia’s post office network and deliveryservice will create a service architecture with high social value in the country, which can be madepossible thanks to the physical and technological infrastructure of Poste Italiane. “We willanalyse the needs of individuals and businesses in Russia to propose a wide range of commercialservices, e-commerce, digital communication and broadcasting services on the web,” he added.
Russia’s Prime Minister commented: “Overall, we can be quite satisfied with how ourtrade-economic relationship is developing, which has been going up recently despite the problems ofthe global and European economies. We can assume that the trading volumes between our countrieswill reach the pre-crisis levels this year.”
Kiselyov concluded: “Today, the partnership between Russian Post, Poste Italiane and Selex Elsagrepresents an international technological cooperation responding to mutual interests. The globalpostal sector is a single organism, and its common efficiency depends directly on every part of it– each national postal operator. In this respect, it is very important for the development ofpostal services in all countries to be coordinated, with productive innovative solutions in thepostal sector to be implemented all over the world.”
