Egypt Post and the Universal Postal Union (UPU) have inked a cooperation agreement to put Ecom@Africa initiative into effect, to promote and develop e-commerce among African postal organizations.

The agreement provides for creating an African e-commerce platform that Egypt will be responsible for managing in collaboration with African countries.

The aim is to overcome the challenges that African countries face in applying e-commerce, and make Egypt Africa’s e-commerce hub. This is in addition to leveraging Egypt’s geographic location in providing logistic services, by consolidating incoming parcels to African countries and redirecting them through the Consolidation Hub in Cairo airport.

Moreover, Egypt Post held an extended meeting with the heads of African postal organizations to discuss promoting its e-commerce platform and arrange for the workshop that will be held on January 26-27, in Cairo, to provide technical support for African countries in e-commerce.

Egypt Post also signed a cooperation protocol with Kenya Post on e-commerce. The aim is to use the Consolidation Hub in Cairo Airport to facilitate online shopping from the U.S., UK and China, for Kenya Post customers. The protocol provides for consolidating incoming parcels from the three countries, at the Consolidation Hub in Cairo Airport, then shipping them to Kenya. This will help reduce shipping costs and improve the service quality.

The protocol also aims to enhance cooperation between Egypt Post and Kenya Post, and strengthen ties between the two countries to leverage post potentials, to provide high quality and affordable e-commerce services and gain customers’ trust.