BUCHAREST (Romania), October 29 (SeeNews) - Romania's state-controlled postal services operator Posta Romana said on Thursday it has launched a direct route to London.
Posta Romana will service the Bucharest-Timisoara-London route twice a week, it said in a press release.
The newest route added to the already existing ones to Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Moldova, Germany, France and Italy.
"As promised, we continue to identify new land routes and alternative transport solutions, taking into account the situation in the recent months and restrictions caused by the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic," Posta Romana general director Horia Grigorescu said.
Earlier this month, Posta Romana announced that it has signed a 200 million lei ($48 million/43 million euro) loan agreement with state-owned Eximbank in order to finance a large-scale investment programme.
The proceeds of the loan which has a tenor of 12 years will be used to improve automation of logistics processes by setting up new transit and sorting centers in Bucharest and Cluj, as well as to create and implement an integrated digital management system architecture. In addition, the loan will be used to finance the rehabilitation of buildings in Timisoara, Piatra Neamt, Oradea and Cluj, which have the status of historical monuments and are owned by the postal operator, the postal operator said at the time.
The Romanian state owns 93.52% of Posta Romana, with the remainder is held by local property restitution fund Fondul Proprietatea.
Posta Romana has the largest distribution network at the national level, employing 24,000 people at 5,500 units. Over 19 million people benefit from its services and more than 7.5 million addresses are covered by the company's own postal network.
In 2018, Posta Romana received a 170 million lei capital injection from the government to repay overdue debt to the state.
In September 2015, the government failed to sell Posta Romana as the Belgian postal services operator bpost, which was the only investor that had shown interest in the privatisation process, did not submit a binding bid for a 51% stake in the company by the specified deadline.
(1 euro=4.8747 lei)