Poczta Polska, the Polish postal operator, is to build new sorting centres in four cities at a costof PLN (Polish zlotych) 480 million (EUR 122.7 million), according to reports in the Polish media.
The centres, part of a programme to improve infrastructure and the quality of services, areto be constructed in Wroclaw, Katowice, Gdansk and Bydgoszcz, said the Polish News Bulletin. Eachof them is to cost PLN 120 million (EUR 30.68 million), the newspaper says.
The post, which recently lost one of its biggest customers, TP (Polish Telecom), to emergingrival Krakow-based InPost and suffered a wave of industrial action, nevertheless recorded a profitof PLN 300 million (EUR 76.7 million) in 2006 on 7% year-on-year revenue growth.
It awarded over 100,000 postal workers pay rises worth a total PLN 60 million (EUR 15.34million) to resolve a dispute that threatened to blow up into a full-out nationwide strike.
Polish Post’s director general, Zbigniew Niezgoda, is quoted as saying liberalisation of thebelow-50g, PLN 2.5 billion (EUR 638 million) mail market by 2009 – desired by the EuropeanCommission – “should not be a problem”.
Privatisation of Poczta Polska is not expected to take place before 2011, the newspaperreports.
