President Oscar Arias recently announced efforts to improve Costa Rica’s postal service, unveiling a bill that would reform the system and signing an agreement between the Postal University of Brazil and Correos de Costa Rica S.A., the state-owned company that manages the nation’s postal system.
The proposed Postal Reform Law would create better regulation of the postal system, according to a statement from Casa Presidencial. Existing laws do not “establish limits for the postal sector with respect to other sectors, do not regulate the activity of the postal market and do not have a definition of a universal postal service,” the statement said.
Additionally, numerous private mail services have sprung up that do not comply with minimum requirements, the statement said.
The law seeks to correct these deficiencies and “permit Correos de Costa Rica S.A. to have a framework of action to benefit all Costa Ricans in guaranteeing all (postal) services all over the country,” it said.
Casa Presidencial also oversaw the April 12 signing of an agreement between Correos de Costa Rica and the Postal University of Brazil, which will allow Costa Rican postal employees to receive training and assessment as Correos implements standardized street addresses throughout the country.
The new addresses, which have been in the works since 2003 as part of a $1 million overhaul of the address system, will include the avenue, street and number of meters from the corner where those roads intersect to the front door of the building (TT, July 8, 2005). The country’s 81 municipalities have been charged with ensuring their streets and avenues have names, and more than 432,000 addresses have already been determined in the Central Valley, Geovanni Campos, distribution director for Correos de Costa Rica, told The Tico Times last month (TT, March 9).
Brazil’s postal system is considered the best in Latin America, the Casa Presidencial statement said.
