Express Courier International is a cost-effective service that provides trackable door-to-door delivery to more than 200 countries and territories, with deliveries between most major cities taking between two and four business days. Some significant differences from our competitors’ services include:

• our ability to deliver to post office boxes as well as remote and rural areas
• the convenience of prepaid envelopes, satchels and boxes
• the ability to lodge items in gold street posting boxes.

The service (which was launched in March 2005) continued to make excellent progress in 2006/07, with volume growth of 9.5 per cent and revenue growth of 12.3 per cent.

As of September 2006, we withdrew our Economy Air Parcels service because of increasing costs and falling demand. (The Economy Air Letters service was withdrawn in 1999 for similar reasons.) Our customers are now using Air Parcels, which offers a more comprehensive service and is performing well.

We also launched our Express Post International Parcels service in September 2006. It offers priority handling, basic tracking where available and signature on delivery for items over 2 kilograms, with delivery within three to seven business days between metropolitan areas of major cities. In the nine months following its launch, the new service generated revenue of $6.7 million.

In March 2007, Communications Minister Senator Helen Coonan officially opened our gateway facilities in Melbourne and Sydney. We work closely with the Australian Customs Service and Australian Quarantine & Inspection Service at the facilities to screen 100 per cent of inward international mail for prohibited or dangerous materials.

The Federal Government contributed funding to upgrade the Sydney facility, build the Melbourne facility and provide new processing equipment to protect Australia’s border security, agriculture and environment.