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At the opening ceremony, Bro. Somchai, Director of the APPU Bureau, gave the opening remarks. He first expressed his delight saying “APPU is very happy to be able to realize this Annual Seminar after the cancellation of this seminar last year due to severe floods, I wish for all the participants to gain new knowledge and ideas through this seminar, and apply that knowledge at your individual workplaces”. Bro. Eiichi Ito Director of UNI-Apro Post and Logistics highlighted that the APPU Joint Seminar, which has now reached its 12th year, has produced many qualified graduates who are currently active in the frontline as union leaders. He thanked the longstanding cooperation from APPC.

Day 1 started with a lecture on the “Introduction to UPU & APPU: Toward Doha Postal Strategy” and the “Mail, Parcel and Logistics Management” by instructor Bro. Aras, and a lecture on the “Business Excellence” by instructor Bro. Shailendra. Followed by these lectures, the participants broke into groups and held discussions on the Postal Business, Logistics Business, and Postal Financial Business. After the sessions, participants visited Laksi Mail Center and enjoyed observing the site of Logistics.

Day 2 Bro. Kim, Regional Project Coordinator of UPU gave a lecture on the Financial Services in Korea Post and participants were eager to ask questions. At the closing ceremony, Sis. Osaki from JPGU gave a speech representing the seminar participants. She thanked for continuous support from APPU to make a success of this seminar and also appreciated rich and varied course content provided by APPC instructors. She emphasized the need and importance of strengthening the network and information exchange amongst the postal unions in the Asia and Pacific region.

Following this on the 15th of March, together with 30 participants from the Thailand postal union (SEWU-THP), UNI-Apro Post and Logistics / SEWU-THP joint seminar was held in APPC.

Bro. Wilert, President of SEWU-THP, gave the opening remarks at the opening ceremony. Bro. Wilert continued with his video-presentation about relief activities by SEWU-THP namely provision of relief supplies for their members at the time of floods last year. In the afternoon, after Mr. Phitsanu from Thailand Post management made a presentation on “Thailand Post’s Corporate Strategies”, overseas participants broke into groups accordingly to their sub-regions and gave brief reports on the postal and logistics services in their respective countries. They had an active discussion with Thailand postal union’s members. Although each sub-region and country has their differences, participants have also come to find that there were many common issues such as privatisation, decrease in profits, increased competition with major multinational logistics companies, issues on outsourcing and atypical workers and others. Following this Bro. Ito made a presentation entitled “Postal Services in Asia and the Pacific: Shaping Social Asia Pacific, Building the Future”. Bro. Ito presented a brief overview of UNI and UNI-Apro, and explained the framework of Regional Integration including ASEAN, TPP and there were many questions from participants.

Bro. Ito closed the seminar by calling upon the UNI-Apro Post and Logistics affiliates to come together and fight as one in this critical time postal workers are facing.