Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov. 8 / Trend H. Valiyev /
Azerbaijan supports concessionary postal rates for library items in the interlibrary loan system in the CIS, Azerbaijani Communications and IT Ministry Postal Department head Novruz Mammadov told Trend today.
He added that the issue was recently discussed at the Chisinau meeting of the Regional Commonwealth of Communications (RCC). At the meeting, participants discovered that a number of countries have shown little interest in using preferential CIS tariffs.
"The issue depends on the collective approach of all of the RCC's member countries and also the signing of a protocol to apply preferential tariffs for library items in the interlibrary loan system," Mammadov said. "Solving this issue takes time due to the financial conditions of RCC postal operators - particularly, operators from Central Asia. Many of them, first and foremost, take into account the losses that they may suffer by introducing such a system. They think these losses should be paid off either by the government, or such privileges will not be worth using."
Letters and packages are sent to some CIS countries according to foreign as opposed to CIS tariffs. Meanwhile, today, the cost of delivering a book weighing up to one kilogram via air mail to Azerbaijan costs from 26 to 36 manat.
A draft agreement was developed on preferential postage rates for items in the library system to resolve this problem. The agreement stipulates that sending documents in the loan system will be carried out at 50-percent reduced rates.
The agreement will be signed for an indefinite period. Any country that is are ready to assume the obligations arising the document may join.