Swiss in the sh**?

[POSTMAN]

Government to reduce Swiss Post's letter monopoly

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ZURICH, April 22 (Reuters) - The Swiss government announced Wednesday that it would cut Swiss Post's monopoly, reducing the weight of letters over which it has exclusive delivery rights to 50 grams from 100 grams.

The new ruling, to be introduced on July 1, will put an estimated 25 percent of letter deliveries in Switzerland onto a competitive market, the government said in a statement.

Swiss Post is wholly stated-owned and the country's second-biggest employer.

"Currently about 12 percent of deliveries are on the competitive market," a government spokesman said.

The move comes as part of a 2008 government plan to open up the letter market completely by 2012, and follows a 2006 reduction to 100 grams from 200 grams which weakened Swiss Post's source of financing for its service.

The government also announced that it would be reforming the structure of the post regulation authority, PostReg, giving consumers more rights to launch general service complaints.

The Swiss communications trade unions criticised the news as a "huge strategic mistake", saying it would cost many jobs and could lead to the closure of 400 post offices as a competitive market erodes Swiss Post's finances.

In 2007, the European Union announced plans to liberalise the postal services market in the 27-nation bloc.

Earlier this year, the Dutch government opened up the last part of the Dutch mail market, ending Dutch mail company TNT's (TNT.AS) partial monopoly. This opened the market for letters of up to 50 grams -- which was estimated to be worth about 1 billion euros ($1.29 billion) in 2007.

In January 2008, the German letter monopoly law, which granted an exclusive license to Deutsche Post (DPWGn.DE) for the transport of letters and catalog deliveries of up to 50 grams, was also abolished. ($1=.7738 Euro) (Reporting by Josie Cox; Editing by Hans Peters)