Arab Conference on electronic postal remittances highlights need for greater coordination among Arab countries

The conference was held under the auspices of the Syrian Communication Ministry and attended by officials from Universal Postal Union and French Post.

The main deliberations focused on how to upgrade money transfer through the IFS system that ensures secure and quick transfer. This is ideal for Arab countries that have a large number of temporary workers who need to regularly transfer money to other parts of the world. Participants discussed challenges in Arab countries, the digital divide between developing and developed countries and the need for liberalization and enhanced technology.

An Emirates Post delegation, consisting of Nasser Qaddoumi, operations manager, and Eman Saeed Salmeen from operations department, took part in the deliberations.

Abdulla Al Daboos, Director General of Emirates Post, said: "The remittance market offers a huge potential for postal corporations, especially in the Arab world because of the presence of so many expatriates. The conference rightly highlighted what needs to be done to make post office competitive in providing this vital service securely and at fast speed."
Nasser Qaddoumi of Emirates Post presented findings of a study on market requirements and stressed the need for speed and quality of ser4vice. The presence of strong competition from private players means that posts have to provide value addition in order to attract customers to their product.

Sergy Namba from UPU and Najeeb Bularas, regional UPU Consultant, explained the UPU's role in upgrading postal networks for electronic money transfer and highlighted the need for devising ways of beating competition from private players. Officials from French Post presented highlights of the ISF and how it could help poor and developing countries link their networks electronically for money transfer.