The business proposed replacing the fee in favor of Russian Post with the purchase of its services
After the authorities announced a financial hole in Russian Post, which threatens to bury the state-owned company, the Cabinet of Ministers began to actively discuss possible ways to cover the operator’s losses.
Riddle of the hole
On September 25, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matvienko said that there was a growing financial hole in Russian Post. According to her, the financial situation of the postal operator is “very sad,” but no one is in a hurry to correct it. The company urgently needs to develop a “correct financial model of existence,” otherwise this hole will turn into a huge pit “where everything will fall.”
The financial situation there is very sad, and everyone knows it, but no one takes action. Maybe we should do a thorough analysis of what’s happening, maybe there are other processes going on that need to be corrected with the participation of law enforcement agencies or others
Economic Development Minister Maxim Reshetnikov expressed “great concern” about the company’s financial condition and said that the government was already considering options to correct the situation. According to him, one of them will be payment from the budget through the delivery of pensions and benefits, and the second will be a collection from online stores, while the Cabinet of Ministers is inclined in favor of the second option.
The head of Russian Post admitted that the financial situation of the company remains tense. Despite the fact that over the past six months the operator has managed to reduce its operating loss by three times and reopen many branches that were temporarily closed, some post offices, which are located in rural and remote communities and “have a purely social mission,” are still dragging the company down.
What is happening with Russian Post?
In 2022, Russian Post became unprofitable for the first time in nine years. The company’s revenue decreased by four percent, to 208.4 billion rubles. Of this, three quarters came directly from postal activities—152.8 billion rubles.
The company’s operating expenses, on the contrary, increased to 16 billion rubles: representatives of Post explained this by the rise in price of logistics and equipment maintenance, as well as the increase in other expenses associated with the suspension of work of global brands in Russia, difficulties with making payments and transport restrictions that reduced the flow of international postal items. In addition, expenses for employees increased: according to the new head of the state-owned company, 14 billion rubles were allocated to increase salaries and “reconfigure work taking into account new economic and geopolitical realities.”
RUB 27 billion
amounted to a loss of Russian Post at the end of 2022
At the end of 2022, the company changed its CEO. The head of the National Lottery, Mikhail Volkov, became the new head of Russian Post; he replaced Maxim Akimov, who had managed the organization since 2020, after the resignation of the government of Dmitry Medvedev.
Since the new appointments, mass layoffs began in the company. First, the new management began work with reductions, since it considered the company’s staff to be overly bloated, after which it changed the wage rules. Employees have been reduced in the number of vacancies that current employees can share among themselves, and have also limited the distribution of salaries among vacant positions.
Sources linked the change in Russian Post’s personnel policy with its difficult financial situation, which has worsened amid restrictions on postal communications with some countries and the loss of a large part of income from cross-border trade. The only possible way out of the situation was called direct government support or the introduction of an infrastructure payment from e-commerce market participants who in one way or another use the postal infrastructure in their work.
Ways to solve the problem
In July, the Ministry of Digital Development decided to discuss with marketplaces the possibility of introducing a mandatory payment in favor of Russian Post, which was initiated by the state-owned company itself. According to her estimates, at least 29 billion rubles will be required to cover losses due to branches in remote parts of the country. In addition, to modernize Russian Post facilities in the next 10-15 years, another 140 billion rubles will be required, because many of them, as the audit showed, are in unsatisfactory condition, Volkov noted.
Presumably, the tax will be levied on companies whose revenue is over a billion rubles a year. It will amount to 0.5 percent of the quarterly turnover of goods. As the authors of the proposal note, if the top 30 online trading companies are included in the register of infrastructure payment payers, this will bring the company about 23 billion rubles a year.
The Russian Post proposal did not meet with unanimous support. Thus, the initiative was not approved by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and deputies of the Duma faction “A Just Russia” warned that the new fee would cause “negative effects” for trade and economic processes in the state.
The idea of a postal operator was opposed by Ozon, Sbermarket, Wildberries, M.Video-Eldorado, Avito, DNS, Lamoda, VseInstrumenty.ru and Citylink. According to them, due to such a contribution, over 40 billion rubles could be withdrawn from the market in 2024; for many organizations, the proposed payment is comparable to or exceeds their net profit.
Marketplaces also believe that such a tax will ultimately be paid by the end buyer due to rising prices for goods. As an alternative, industry representatives proposed loading the operator’s infrastructure on market terms and using the capabilities of Russian Post in delivering goods throughout the country and abroad, as well as implementing a partnership in the field of issuing and paying for orders at post offices, receiving and returning funds, fitting and other services. In this case, in 2024, Internet platforms will pay the organization about 33.5 billion rubles.
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