The Communications Service under the Government of Tajikistan has clarified its decision to seal offices of four international logistics companies, namely DHL, UPS, TNT and Pony Express in Tajikistan.
In an interview with Tajikistan’s state-run news agency Khovar, Ilhom Atoyev, the deputy head of the communications service agency, said the country’s law on mail service in new edition had taken effect.
“Article 11 of this law stipulates that postal services in Tajikistan are subject to licensing,” Atoyev said.
“All companies engaged in providing postal services in Tajikistan must go through a licensing process in accordance with established procedure. The mentioned companies should apply to the Communications Service for licenses, and in case of affirmative decision their activities will be resumed,” tajik communications official added.
Recall, Tajik communications service agency sealed offices of Pony Express, TNT Express, United Parcel Service and DHL Express in Dushanbe on June 7.
The offices have reportedly been sealed because they do not have licenses for operating in Tajikistan.
Representative of UPS says the company has operated in Tajikistan since 1994. “In 2004, the Communications Service abolished licensing for our company, and therefore, we have operated in Tajikistan only on the basis of registration with the Tax Committee. However, representatives of the Communications Service came to our office today morning and sealed it, saying that we do not have license for operating in Tajikistan” the UPS representative told Asia-Plus Wednesday afternoon.
The office of TNT Express has suffered the same fate. Representative of TNT Express said they got notification about the necessity of getting license two months ago.
“We applied for license at once but they asked us to pay for license little later, but then they refused our license application at all,” he added.
TNT Express has operated in Tajikistan since 2005 and they had not had any problems before that.
Meanwhile, representative of DHL Express office in Dushanbe said their office had been sealed without any explanations.
The Pony Express is the largest universal logistics operator in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). There are 60 express centers and 128 representative offices in Russia, as well as representative offices in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Moldova, and Armenia.
TNT Express is an international courier delivery services company, now a subsidiary of FedEx but originally with headquarters in Hoofddorp, Netherlands. The firm has fully owned operations in 61 countries and delivers documents, parcels and pieces of freight to over 200 countries.
United Parcel Service (UPS) is the world's largest package delivery company and a provider of supply chain management solutions. The global logistics company is headquartered in the city of Sandy Springs, Georgia, United States, which is a part of the Greater Atlanta metropolitan area. UPS delivers more than 15 million packages per day to more than 7.9 million customers in more than 220 countries and territories around the world.
DHL Express is a division of the German logistics company Deutsche Post DHL providing international courier, parcel and express mail services. Deutsche Post DHL is the world's largest logistics company operating around the world, particularly in sea and air mail.
Founded in the United States in 1969 to deliver documents between San Francisco and Honolulu; the company expanded its service throughout the world by the late 1970s. The company was primarily interested in offshore and inter-continental deliveries, but the success of FedEx prompted their own intra-US expansion starting in 1983.
In 1998, Deutsche Post began to acquire shares in DHL. It reached majority ownership in 2001, and 100% ownership by December 2002. The company then absorbed DHL into its Express division, while expanding the use of the DHL brand to other Deutsche Post divisions, business units and subsidiaries. Today, DHL Express shares its DHL brand with business units such as DHL Global Forwarding and DHL Supply Chain.
