Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 21 /Trend H.Valiyev/
The privatisation of the Azerbaijani postal operator is one of the likely measures to improve the profitability of Azerpost LLC, the acting Minister of Communications and Information Technologies of Azerbaijan, Ali Abbasov told journalists on Monday.
According to him, maintaining the postal industry's profitability in Azerbaijan is quite difficult in the current situation.
"Today, the postal operator receives subsidies from the state budget. We are currently working with a number of consulting companies to turn Azerbaijan's post into a competitive structure. The question of privatisation is only a proposal and recommendations in this sphere," he said.
The Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) has allocated some $0.6 million for the institutional development of the country's postal operator. These funds are planned to be spent on training Azerpost's employees, changing the design and re-branding of its products and attracting an external auditor who will prepare recommendations and Azerpost's development strategy.
With the assistance of the World Bank, the postal operator has introduced new financial and banking services in order to increase profitability as part of its strategy for 2009-2011.