Postal Service Promoting International Shipments

By Angela Greiling Keane

 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Postal Service and the Commerce Department said they will work to help small and medium-size businesses ship exports through the post office’s international services, which include a FedEx Corp. partnership.

The joint effort is aimed at contributing to President Barack Obama’s campaign to double U.S. exports while helping the mailing agency as it struggles with declining volume and revenue.

“We know that American businesses produce world-class goods and services,” Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said today at a news conference in Washington on the initiative. “What we can improve on is connecting those businesses to the 95 percent of the world’s consumers living outside our borders.”

The Postal Service, which had about $2.3 billion in international shipping revenue in its previous fiscal year, wants to double that through the export initiative, Postmaster General John Potter said today in an interview.

“We’d like to do another $2 billion to $3 billion within the next two to three years,” Potter said. International shipping revenue was less than 4 percent of the Postal Service’s revenue in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.

The Postal Service, which has said it may lose $7 billion this fiscal year, proposed last week increasing the price of first-class stamps by 2 cents, to 46 cents. The post office also proposed rate increases of 8 percent for periodicals and 23 percent for some parcels as it tries to compensate for mail volume lost to the economic downturn and increased electronic communication and bill paying.

Export Financing

Obama said last week his administration is increasing access to export financing for small and medium-size U.S. businesses while removing barriers to trade.

He also said Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally is among executives joining an advisory panel to help boost exports to create jobs.

Locke said the Commerce Department is also working with FedEx and United Parcel Service Inc. as it increases U.S. small- business exports.

Less than 1 percent of the 30 million U.S. businesses export, while 58 percent of those that do send goods to only one other country, he said.

--With assistance from Nicholas Johnston in Washington. Editors: Larry Liebert, Romaine Bostick

To contact the reporter on this story: Angela Greiling Keane in Washington at agreilingkea@bloomberg.net.