TAGS may get Thailand Post logistics job

The state agency's board chairman, Siwa Saengmanee, said early this week that both parties were in talks on the final details and negotiations were expected to be wrapped up on May 12.

He said the project, on a revenue-sharing basis, was expected to |contribute revenue of at least Bt1 billion to the state agency within five years.

The project also serves the state agency's plan to become a major logistics-provider.

Under the proposal, TAGS will develop 13 mail centres for Thailand Post nationwide to be logistics service centres for parking and distributing of products, mainly for corporate customers who want to deliver a large volume of items across the country.

It will invest in an IT system for managing the logistics service for the centres.

Thailand Post will maximise its skills in delivering products from the centres for TAGS to their destinations.

TAGS president Ladya Uriya said they were in talks on the final details of the revenue-sharing, with TAGS guaranteeing the minimum revenue for Thailand Post.

He added that TAGS was expected to initially spend Bt300 million on installing the project's IT system.

Thailand Post's chief operating officer Woodhipong Moleechart said the state agency had to explore all promising areas and maximise the space of its postal branches nationwide to boost revenue.

Thailand Post was originally the postal unit of CAT Telecom, when CAT was the Communications Authority of Thailand. When CAT was corporatised in 2003, the postal unit was split off to become Thailand Post.

Thailand Post regularly forges new partnerships with private-sector companies. In September 2008 it linked up with True Move by having 1,200 members of its staff act as agents in topping up prepaid mobile-phone accounts for the cellular-operator's customers.

It also tied up with budget airline Thai AirAsia recently to deliver food from restaurants in Chiang Mai, Nong Khai, Ubon Ratchathani and Phuket to customers in Bangkok.