Vietnamese people love shipping items, the whole country has 5 billion postal items per year

(Dan Tri) - Vietnam's postal market has exceeded 5 billion postal items, an increase of more than 15 times compared to 2010. The draft revised Postal Law proposes to reduce 14 administrative procedures to one.

More than 5 billion postal items, the number of businesses increased nearly 18 times

At the regular press conference of the Ministry of Science and Technology on the morning of September 30, a representative of the Postal Department said that Vietnam's postal market has seen strong growth after more than a decade.

Specifically, according to Mr. Le Van Chung - Representative of the Postal Department, in 2010, the whole country had only 40 postal enterprises with an output of about 310 million postal items.

To date, the number of businesses has increased to 710, while output exceeded 5 billion postal items, equivalent to an increase of nearly 18 times and more than 15 times, respectively.

Mr. Le Van Chung - Representative of the Postal Department (Photo: Minh Nhat).

The development of e-commerce and the need for online shopping have significantly changed postal activities. Previously, letters accounted for about 80% of postal output, now this ratio is only about 10%, making room for packages and parcels of goods.

The growth rate also requires changes in management methods. The 2010 Postal Law has revealed points that are no longer suitable for the scale and way the market operates today.

To solve this problem, the draft revised Postal Law proposes 5 new policy groups, notably the proposal to strongly shift from pre-inspection to post-inspection, simplifying market entry procedures.

Specifically, businesses will no longer have to apply for paper postal licenses but switch to registering to provide services via the electronic environment.

The management agency only checks the completeness of the dossier instead of appraising the content as currently. Enterprises are solely responsible for the accuracy and truthfulness of declared information and are subject to inspection after registration.

Shipping warehouse of a delivery unit (Photo: G.S).

If approved, the number of administrative procedures in this field will be reduced from 14 to one registration procedure, helping businesses save time and costs of entering the market.

The draft also clarifies the boundary between postal services and transportation, warehousing and logistics, fields with many intersecting activities.

Accordingly, postal services are determined based on receiving and processing each postal item individually, attaching identification codes, tracking the journey and delivering to the recipient's address.

For example, a truck carrying goods from one warehouse to another is considered a transportation activity. However, if each package is individually coded, classified, routed and delivered to each specific address, this activity is typical of the postal service.

People in remote and remote areas can enjoy unified delivery rates

Another notable new point is the proposal to expand universal postal services to packages and parcels of goods, instead of mainly serving letters as before.

The draft sets out the principle that people across the country will have access to universal services at uniform rates, no higher than the average rates of equivalent commercial services.

Regular press conference of the Ministry of Science and Technology).

This policy is expected to help people in remote, border and island areas reduce the cost of delivering goods, especially agricultural products and local specialties.

In addition, the postal network is identified as an essential infrastructure serving e-commerce and the digital economy.

The draft also proposes to classify businesses based on actual network operating capacity, as a basis for mobilizing resources when natural disasters, epidemics or emergency situations occur. Reasonable costs incurred during the mobilization process will have a compensation mechanism.

With billions of postal items each year, manual inspection of all goods is no longer appropriate. The draft revised Postal Law proposes switching to management using digital data and risk analysis.

Each postal item will have to be assigned an identification code to track throughout the transportation process. Enterprises are responsible for collecting valid sender information, storing identification and traceability data for at least one year from the date of successful transmission.

This regulation aims to increase the ability to detect and prevent abuse of postal services to transport prohibited goods, contraband goods, weapons and explosives.

Instead of mass inspections, authorities will focus on high-risk items, while ensuring compliance with regulations on personal data protection and cybersecurity.

A representative of the Postal Department said that the Ministry of Science and Technology is coordinating with relevant agencies to receive comments and complete the draft revised Postal Law, which is expected to be submitted to the National Assembly for consideration and approval at the 2nd Session of the 16th National Assembly.