Company to revise prices
POST Fiji Ltd (PFL) is in the process of revising the express mail services (EMS) and international parcels prices, says PFL chief of staff Dr Anirudha Bansod during a press conference in Suva.
He said due to the global inflation, running a business during current challenging times was costly.
“We are in the business of logistics and delivery services and on June 13 this month it was very unfortunate but we have had to revise our EMS as well as international parcels,” he said.
“This was beyond our control and just to sustain our business and keep on giving services to the community we had to restructure our pricing for these two services but we’ll ensure when we restructure our prices the impact will not be huge on the customers.”
He added the company has also been bearing the brunt of rising fuel prices and high shipping costs.
“The shipping container companies has increased the container freight rates prices so if you’re talking about a 20 foot or 40 foot container the prices has gone up.
“Due to these rising costs, this has impacted the grocery and stationary products of what we import from overseas so this is beyond our control.”
General manager for United Containers Fiji Ltd (UCFL) John Hong-tiy said the increase of prices was due to the worldwide shortage of shipping containers
“Recently the company had to source its containers from neighboring countries because we ran out of stock,” he said.
“This pandemic just hasn’t been good for the container business and the freight industry in the shipping industry as we have the price of crude oil increasing which then adds to the shipping and freight costs,” he said.
“We recently had to source our containers from New Zealand and Australia secondhand and unfortunately, there is the added cost of shipping it from those countries.
“Prior to 2020 we sold 20 foot crates for just under $5000 but now that same crate of container we have to ask around $7000 to $8000 because of all the added taxes, VAT on those containers and the freight to bring the container on the vessel from overseas.”