Evolutions in Postal and Courier Services in Romania
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Annals of the „Constantin Brâncuşi” University of Târgu Jiu, Economy Series, Issue 5/2016 EVOLUTIONS IN POSTAL AND COURIER SERVICES IN ROMANIA CECILIA IRINA RABONTU CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI UNIVERSITY OF TARGU JIU FACULTY OF ECONOMICS e-mail: [email protected] Abstract: Postal services have emerged and existed because of the need for communication and their millenary existence was achieved due to three elements: the only channel of communication, the state of monopoly conferred by the status of the state institution and therefore no competition. The most important known moments in the history of postal services, which led to reforms are: unification of postage charges, postal stamp appearance and now, liberalization of postal services. The slow development of the postal sector varies from country to country, depending on the state of development of the country and within countries depending on the gap between urban and rural areas. The operation of postal services throughout their existence was and is provided by specific legislation and it should be aligned with international postal legislation, to ensure continuity of information. There can be no country to formulate its own laws or its own organization, without regard to organization and international regulations. Both the specificity and diversity of postal services causes a special approach in the context of their market and also in the services market context. Postal services are services of general interest, which emerged from communication need, from personal or official needs, not from economic needs. As an alternative to postal services have emerged and developed rapidly the courier services that come to complete and even compete to this category of services. We proposed in this paper to analyze and compare these two categories of services to determine the advantages and disadvantages but also the degree of which grow together or develop in a continuous competition. 1. Introduction Postal services have a historical evolution, existing since ancient times in various forms, more primitive at its beginnings and highly diversified and modern nowadays. With the development of human society, emerged also the necessity of communication paths required for travel, movement of goods and transmission of news. In parallel and complementary to them have developed certain services required to go through distances shortly and seif, in their category being included postal services. According to the Romanian encyclopedia, Romanian postal services have been certified since the period before the conquest of Dacia by the Roman Empire when were identified a number of natural roads used for commercial and military purposes, which stretched along the water and representing infrastructure that Post office used that time which aimed to satisfy the needs of state, of governors and foreign messengers and rarely of individuals. The most obvious changes in the postal services is registered to the middle of the seventeenth century when were introduced relays mail, known as „menziluri”. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, in Romania functioned the postal services of Austria and Russia. After 1822, it began a period of economic development given the trade relations increasingly intense, something that also led to postal services development. Although it is a field of activity emerged many years ago, there are not found very many analyzes on their evolution. A google search on academic results are quite modest given the importance of this business segment in the field tertiary sector. Cristinel Constantin1 in 2015 conducted a research on the profile of consumers of postal services in a competitive market referring to Romanian consumer. The author believes that "Postal services play an important role, both nationally and internationally, given the need for people to communicate and to send parcels to different distances, which often cross national borders. Because of their importance, postal services are regulated in several countries and the obligations enshrined in the Universal Service (SU) ensure that any consumer across the country have access to a basic level of services regarding: territorial coverage, pricing and quality services "(Constantin C, 2015). Under the Directive 2008/6/EC of the European Parliament and Council from 20th February 2008, the EU Member States should determine the most efficient and appropriate mechanism to guarantee the availability of the Universal Service, while respecting the principles of objectivity, transparency, non-discrimination, proportionality and least market distortion, to ensure the free provision of postal services in the internal market. Article 21st of the Directive 1 Constantin Cristinel. "The profile of consumers of postal services in a competitive market. Case study: Romania." Romanian Journal of Marketing 4 (2015): 39. „ACADEMICA BRÂNCUŞI” PUBLISHER, ISSN 2344 – 3685/ISSN-L 1844 - 7007 13 Annals of the „Constantin Brâncuşi” University of Târgu Jiu, Economy Series, Issue 5/2016 defines the content of the Universal Service, which guarantees "at least one clearance and one delivery to the home of individual or firm, every working day, even in remote or sparsely populated areas." (European Commission, 2008) . The importance of postal services in the economy situated at the confluence of communications, advertising and transport, postal services is, together with the other transport services, logistics and communications, a key sector of the EU economy. Postal services provide social benefits that cannot be quantified economically. Postal services are a crucial element of the European single market policy, an important sector of the EU economy, an increasing contribution to the Union’s GDP, and were included in the Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Jobs. Postal reform began in 1992 with the Green Paper on the single market for postal services had a significant impact on the provision of postal services and postal sector. (Badulescu I, Bucur M, 2015 )2 Another author said that "The importance of postal services should not be underestimated. The postal sector is a sector with significant economies of scale effects of which propagates in the national economy as a whole. In 2000, EU postal revenues totaled approx. € 85 billion, representing approximately 1% of EU GDP, a figure far from neglicting it if we take into account the nearly 1.7 million employees in the sector. More than 4 million jobs in the EU could be directly related or connected to activities in the postal sector "(Popescu, 20163). Given that postal services market was open, appeared also the competition, so were established new companies that provide such services, something that has created the premise of new jobs emergence but also the development of services of the highest quality for customers. Classical postal services development was driven primarily by the need to send different packages generated by the unprecedented development of electronic commerce but also domestic and international migration phenomenon which involves also sending parcels in both directions. 2. Postal service and Romanian Post – brief history As defined by current legislation4, postal services - are services consisting of collection, sorting, transport and delivery of postal items. Postal services may be provided by any authorized individual, sole proprietorship, family business or any legal person whose business consists, in whole or in part, in the provision of one or more postal services. The supply and provision of postal services should take into account certain requirements regarded as very importants, namely: the confidentiality of correspondence, security of the postal network for the transport of dangerous goods, conformation to the conditions of employment, to the social security systems provided by laws, regulations or administrative and regulatory provisions and/or collective agreement negotiated between national social partners, in accordance with national legislation and European Union’s, and, where appropriate, data protection, environmental protection and regional planning. The oldest provider of postal services in Romania is the Romanian Post which was founded over 150 years ago, and which together with postal administrations from 192 countries is one of the founding members of the Universal Postal Union, an organization founded in Berne in 1874 . RPNC (The Romanian Post National Company) is the entity designated as a national provider of the universal service in the postal sector and benefited, until 31 December 2012, by the exclusive right to provide postal services covering items of correspondence, whether delivery is accelerated or not, weighing less than 50 g and whose price is less than 2 lei. As shown in the data published on the official website of the Romanian Post, the company is owned by the state and has a network of over 7,100 postal units nationwide. The legislation that underlies to carrying aut the activity of Romanian Post is the Law no.31/1990, with subsequent modications and additions, H. G. no.371/1998, the Ordinance no. No. 13/2013 stipulations, approved by Law no.642/2002 on postal services and licenses or given autorizations that operates in the postal communications domain., Ordinance no. 27/2016 for amending and supplementing Government Emergency Ordinance no. 13/2013 on postal services. According to the last act invoked, the right of access to universal service represents the right to benefit from the permanent provision of postal services within the scope