The Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications will slow down the modernization of Federal State Unitary Enterprise

The economic downturn forced the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications to reconsider the development plans of Russian Post. The department has increased the time frame for launching new automated sorting centers, for which it plans to spend 25.1 billion rubles. Experts consider this decision to be timely: the volume of written mail and the growth rate of online commerce have also slowed down.

Photo: Dmitry Lebedev, Kommersant / buy photo

The Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications has adjusted its activity plan until 2018, which Minister Nikolai Nikiforov informed Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich about, a source familiar with the correspondence told Kommersant. The macroeconomic situation does not allow us to count on high economic growth rates in the communications industry in 2015-2016, the minister explained, in connection with which he proposed, in particular, to revise the development plans of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Russian Post. “Due to sharp fluctuations in exchange rates, the ministry has increased the time frame for creating automated sorting centers (ASC - Kommersant ), which are equipped with unique equipment and modern automated technologies from leading international manufacturers. The creation of ASC is the main factor in increasing the number of high-performance jobs at the enterprise. And therefore, the increase in such jobs in the future until 2018 will be minimal,” the source told Kommersant. The secretariat of Arkady Dvorkovich did not comment on this, but Deputy Head of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications Mikhail Evraev confirmed that the timing of the commissioning of new sorting centers has moved forward, while the number of automated processing centers that are planned to be built has not changed.

ASCs are necessary to speed up the delivery of mail to recipients and reduce manual labor, which currently exceeds 80% at the post office. Through the introduction of such centers, Russian Post was supposed to create up to 5 thousand high-tech jobs, according to the Federal State Unitary Enterprise strategy. The first modern ASC appeared in 2009 in Podolsk, and in 2011 in St. Petersburg. It was planned that investments in them would amount to about €35 million and €15 million, respectively. At the end of 2013, an ASC was launched in Vnukovo, which cost $84.5 million. According to Kommersant’s interlocutor at Russian Post, in 2015 it was planned to launch an ASC in Kazan, followed by Rostov-on-Don and Novosibirsk. Projects in Yekaterinburg and the expansion of the ASC in St. Petersburg were of less priority due to the complexity of land registration. Another source told Kommersant that last year it was planned to build two ASCs per year, but due to the crisis they will build only one at a time. According to the press service of Russian Post, the introduction of the ASC in Kazan will take place in the first half of 2016. In the same year, ASCs will be put into operation in Rostov and Novosibirsk, and in Yekaterinburg, Khabarovsk and St. Petersburg, ASCs will appear in 2017-2018.

The current economic situation affects the plans of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise only in terms of timing, the general vector remains the same, the press service assured.

It is planned to spend 25.1 billion rubles on the development of the logistics infrastructure of Russian Post until 2018. with VAT, the press service of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise reported. According to the strategy of Russian Post, the overall investment program involves capital expenditures in the amount of 131 billion rubles, most of them (55%) should be provided through debt financing. According to Mikhail Evraev, due to high borrowing rates, the Russian Post investment program “will be optimized.” At the same time, the general director of Russian Post, Dmitry Strashnov, told TASS at the end of March that he does not plan to apply for government support.

Increasing the time frame for creating an ASC for Russian Post is not critical, says Alexander Ivanov, head of the National Association of Distance Selling. “The volume of written correspondence is declining, the main flow of postal items is parcels from online stores. Due to the crisis, the volume of orders from Russians in online stores will also decrease, so there is no need to expect a rush at the existing Russian Post sorting centers. In addition, some online stores independently sort shipments when placing orders,” says Mr. Ivanov.

Maria Kolomychenko, Vladislav Novy

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