“In the next two weeks, the government will make more difficult, courageous and painful decisions regarding the post office,” Communications Ministry Director General Avishar Ben Horin said yesterday during meetings of the Economics Committee, which discussed a proposal to amend the Postal Law and prepare it for a second and third reading.
The CEO responded to the allegations against the bill, and although she did not specify the expected decisions – according to estimates, this is a plan to privatize the entire state holdings (100%) by mail through the stock exchange. The move could lead to layoffs Competing for mail distribution and closing dozens of branches.
Ben Horin explained that it is not the intention for the post office to become a player in the printing market, but rather as a printing services buyer who markets them as one package “like the other players”. According to her, the intention is to allow him to hold up to 5% in a printing company. As for the claim of harming the periphery and raising prices, the CEO said that this is the quantitative mail price paid by large business owners, and not the price to the private consumer.
The committee’s chairman, MK Michael Bitton (blue and white), demanded that the reform led by Communications Minister Yoaz Handel be improved first and foremost with the consumer. Bitton demanded that the reform not harm consumers in the periphery. The amendment to the Postal Law is mainly intended to implement the Rosen Committee’s recommendations for opening the postal sector to competition, to reform the package industry from abroad and to expand the supervisory and enforcement powers of the Ministry of Communications.
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In a discussion held yesterday, representatives of private companies criticized the bill. For example, Avshalom Haran, chairman of Messer, argued that the post office still operates as a monopoly, and that distribution centers should be opened to all companies and that price controls should be phased out.
Ben-Sukman, CEO of Barry Printing, argued that the bill would eliminate future competition. A ship, said at the hearing that the entry of the printing company for printing would eliminate the printing houses. “It’s enough for the mail to take two or three customers to close the company,” he said.
Nimrod Engel, VP of Agan Industries, added that “there will be cannibalization. The small companies will be closed. “Efrat Haim, director of the printing and paper industries at the Manufacturers’ Association, said that” the entry of the postal company into the printing field – not only will not increase competition, but will constitute a targeted elimination of quantitative printing. ”
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