By Correspondent

TANZANIA has been elected a member of two key bodies of the Universal Postal Union (UPU), a tribute to the country’s commitment to innovation and transformation in the postal sector.

The UPU Council of Administration and the Postal Operations Council, to which the country has been elected, make recommendations on postal operations and their growth through modernization.

Information released by the country’s Postal Services Regulator the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCTRA) in Dar Es Salaam yesterday, says that Tanzania was elected during the just-ended 28th UPU Congress in Dubai, United Arab Emirates involving all UPU Member States. UPU, based in Berne, Switzerland, is the United Nations specialised agency for Postal affairs at Global Level.

Tanzania is implementing programmes to transform the postal sector by promoting innovations and the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in service delivery.

These are part of the UPU strategy for Africa, which aims at enhancing innovations to improve service quality and customer experience. It also focuses on modernizing products and services and developing postal network digitization.

Tanzania is developing the infrastructure for electronic commerce. Policy and regulatory measures and frameworks have addressed most of the enabling factors for e-commerce.

The country has the critical infrastructure and applications that promote high-speed internet services/ It also has sound payment systems, which are electronic commerce prerequisites.

The national physical addresses and postcode systems facilitate service delivery.  It enables the government and its agencies to implement programmes and communicate efficiently with citizens.  It immensely contributed to the success of the August 2022 National Census.

Postcodes facilitate e-commerce as items that are transacted digitally are physically delivered or picked up.

Under the leadership of Her Excellency Dr. Samia Suluhu Hassan, President of the United Republic of Tanzania, the government has linked the national physical addresses and postcode system with other social services platforms and systems. On-Line Postal Services are accessed through a short code * 152*00#

Tanzania is poised to become a regional e-commerce hub and has received several UPU Awards.   The country is surrounded by eight neighbours, five of which are landlocked. The national airline, Air Tanzania, is developing its cargo fleet to serve Africa and beyond.