XN000022-1995-07-19 — Page 78

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Minimum performance standards, binding on the Postmaster General, will be set for all major postal services and specified in the Corporate and Business Plans of the Trading Fund. This will ensure that a high quality of service is provided b irrespective of the profitability of the services.

Trading fund operation will also bring substantial benefits to customers because the Post Office will have more flexibility to take forward a number of new initiatives which have had to be put in abeyance pending the availability of adequate funding resources. These initiatives include opening more post offices to meet the needs of new housing developments, wider use of computers and automation to speed up counter services, extension of door-to-door parcel delivery service to the New Territories, and expansion of Speedpost and philatelic services. These improvements will benefit all sectors of the community.

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To impose the requisite degree of commercial discipline, the Trading Funds Ordinance requires all trading funds to manage their accounts prudently and achieve a reasonable rate of return on the public assets vested in it. The projected rates of return of the Post Office Trading Fund in the next four years are 6.5%, 7.2%, 6.8%, and 8.3% respectively. I should emphasise that the Government's postal policy is and will continue to be - to provide an efficient and reliable postal service at reasonable and *** affordable prices to all users. To achieve this policy objective, we undertake that future postage fate increases will be kept broadly in line with inflation as in the past before trading fund operation.

Mr President, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Members of the Sub-committee set up to study the Post Office Trading Fund Resolution for their support of the Resolution and their time and the many constructive comments they gave to us. Specifically, the sub-committee has requested that the Administration undertakes to:

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prepare a proposal on how to involve Members in monitoring the general operation of the Post Office Trading Fund before the end of 1995;

complete a review on the framework agreement of the trading fund in the next few months to find out the most suitable method for determining the trading fund's target rate of return; and

study the feasibility and desirability of specifying the postal charges by regulations.

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