Price Control Mechanism for MaltaPost plc and Revised Postal Tariffs for Financial Years 2014 and 2015

In November 2012, the MCA published a decision notice entitled "Price Control Mechanism for MaltaPost plc and Revised Postal Tariffs" (hereafter "November 2012 decision notice"). The November 2012  decision notice presented the Authority's final decisions on a price control mechanism for MaltaPost's financial year 2013 (hereafter "PC2013") and proposed the setting up of a subsequent regulatory period featuring a forward looking price control mechanism for financial years 2014 and 2015 (hereafter "PC2014/2015"). On these grounds, following finalisation of PC2013, the MCA moved on to set up the parameters of PC2014/2015 and published a consultation document on the subject on 14th November 2013.

The consultation period ran till the 12th of December 2013, with one respondent, MaltaPost, submitting its response. This document reports the response received from MaltaPost, the MCA’s comments in this regard and presents the Authority’s final position.

The core objective of PC2013 was to steer certain tariffs towards their cost-oriented tariffs levels and address differences in contribution to profitability between services. Latest developments indicate that similar to what happened during the financial year 2013, expected decreases in profitability of international mail and declining volumes of domestic mail are still ongoing.

The price control objectives for PC2014/2015 remain similar to those set for PC2013. The final form for PC2014/2015 detailed in this decision notice builds on the foundations of PC2013 and sets both product-specific as well as overall price control parameters for universal service products/services.

On 25th September 2013, MaltaPost submitted a final request for tariff revisions. The MCA tested whether MaltaPost's requests fit within the parameters of PC2014/5 and as detailed in the tables below, the Authority is approving some of the tariffs proposed by MaltaPost in full and some others in part. The MCA did not approve MaltaPost's proposals to increases the tariffs of the business reply service and P.O. boxes.  The approved tariff revisions shall come into force from 1st January 2014.

Click here for a snapshot view of all approved tariff changes or download the attachment below.