Palestine’s ability to have direct mail exchanges with UPU member countries is improving with the UPU’s granting of an international mail processing centre (IMPC) code to the Ramallah office of exchange.
The code is a UPU standard that applies primarily to mail-processing facilities involved in receiving or sending despatches exchanged under UPU regulations.
Without this code, countries cannot dispatch mail to Palestine or vice versa.
For the moment, mail entering or leaving Palestine continues to transit through Israel. But the Israeli and Palestinian postal authorities pledged in 2008 to work to facilitate direct mail exchanges for Palestine through Amman, Jordan.
These efforts from the UPU are in response to a Beijing Congress resolution C 115/1999, affirming Palestine’s rights of “directly exchanging postal services with Union member countries.”
Palestine, which has managed its own postal services and issued postage stamps since 1995, operates some 100 post offices.
The UPU is providing technical assistance to modernize the Palestinian Post, improve mail processing and train postal staff.