Russian Post will invest around RUB 34 billion (€466 million) in its logistics operations over the next two years and also spend RUB 11.5 billion (€158 million) on wage increases of 20% for 210,000 employees, CEO Nikolai Podgusov told president Vladimir Putin during a meeting in the Kremlin this week.
Referring to the RUB 34 billion logistics investment, Podgusov told Putin: “Russian Post’s infrastructure requires serious renovation and investment. Modern infrastructure guarantees quality postal services and, most importantly, the creation of decent working conditions at the company. In 2018, we renovated about 3,000 post offices and plan to maintain this pace in the future.”
He mentioned the opening of the second part of the logistics centre at Vnukovo Airport near Moscow – "Vnukovo-2" which was put into operation in January this year. “This will allow us to bring the delivery quality to the highest market indicators in the Moscow region.”
“Our focus is on optimising business processes and systematically reducing expenses. Such working approach has already yielded results,” Podgusov commented.
“We also started working on another important task – increasing the salaries of the employees involved in the main production. We have developed a programme that will concern 210,000 employees of the company in professions such as postmen and postal service managers: we plan to increase salaries by 20%. For this purpose, investments worth RUB 11.5 billion are planned.”
The salary increase initiative will start on May 1 in 17 regions with the lowest salaries, and in a year and a half the salaries in the main postal professions will be raised to market levels. “If Russian Post’s performance indicators exceed expectations, we will try to achieve this even faster,” Podgusov said.
“Our mission is to preserve Russian Post’s infrastructure throughout the territory of our country, especially in remote and inaccessible regions, to provide basic postal services, food delivery and financial services,” he stressed.
In this respect, he highlighted the dynamic development of the postal bank (Russian: Pochta Bank). “In 2018, we increased the number of Pochta Bank's branches within Russian Post’s infrastructure to 15,000. Accordingly, we will also continue to expand our financial services at Russian Post.”
“Pochta Bank is a very successful project. The demand for financial services, especially in rural areas, is very high. We are now expanding the network of bank branches at a high speed and we see that the financial services of Russian Post are well received among the population.”
Putin confirmed that the development of the postal bank is very important considering that some other large financial institutions are reducing their branch network for one reason or another. “In addition to economic and financial aspects, it has also a very important social function, which Pochta Bank can fulfill, bearing in mind that the postal network throughout the country works.”
“Our entire infrastructure, which covers 42,000 post offices, will be used to provide financial and other important social services that could be in demand by citizens.”
He also mentioned the transformation of Russian Post into a public limited company which is due to take place this year. “On June 29, 2018, you signed the corresponding law,” Podgusov said to Putin. “Now the company’s reorganisation plan is being implemented jointly with the government. In accordance with the law, we will become a joint stock company with 100% state participation not later than October 1, 2019.”
