Posten Norge () is the name of the Norwegian postal service. The company, owned by the

Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications The Royal Norwegian Ministry of Transportation (; ) is a Norwegian ministry established in 1946, and is responsible for transportation in Norway. The ministry was responsible for communication infrastructure until may 2019, when the responsibility ...

had a

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...

until 2016 on distribution of letters weighing less than 50g throughout the country. There are 30 post offices in Norway, in addition to 1400 outlets in retail stores.

History

Posten was founded in January 1647 as Postvesenet ("the postal system") by general post master

Henrik Morian Henrik is a male given name of Germanic origin, primarily used in Scandinavia, Estonia, Hungary and Slovenia. In Poland, the name is spelt Henryk but pronounced similarly. Equivalents in other languages are Henry (English), Heiki (Estonian), ...

. It was established as a private company, and King

Christian IV Christian IV (12 April 1577 – 28 February 1648) was King of Denmark and Norway and Duke of Holstein and Schleswig from 1588 until his death in 1648. His reign of 59 years, 330 days is the longest of Danish monarchs and Scandinavian mona ...

gave his blessing to the founding of the company. Postvesenet was privately run until 1719, when the state took over. From that point on, national postal service was a

state monopoly In economics, a government monopoly or public monopoly is a form of coercive monopoly in which a government agency or government corporation is the sole provider of a particular good or service and competition is prohibited by law. It is a monopol ...

. Local city postal services remained private, but in 1888 a new postal law was introduced which expanded the monopoly to the entire country. In 1933, Postvesenet was renamed Postverket. In 1996, Posten Norge BA was established as a state-owned company in which the Norwegian state had

limited liability Limited liability is a legal status in which a person's financial liability is limited to a fixed sum, most commonly the value of a person's investment in a corporation, company or partnership. If a company that provides limited liability to it ...

. In 2002 Posten changed its corporate structure to that of a stock company, to prepare the company for the expected

deregulation Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the repeal of governmental regulation of the economy. It became common in advanced industrial economies in the 1970s and 1980s, as a r ...

of the Norwegian postal market. Posten Norge AS is still fully owned by the Norwegian state and the liberalization process has been postponed until 2011 by the government. The postal service is divided into four divisions: Post, Logistics, Distribution Network and ErgoGroup AS. The latter specialized in electronic services and outsourcing. ErgoGroup merged with EDB to form Evry ASA, which Posten now jointly owns with the Norwegian multinational telecommunications company

Telenor ASA Telenor ASA ( or ) is a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company headquartered at Fornebu in Bærum, close to Oslo. It is one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications companies with operations worldwide, ...

Expansion

In 2002 Norway Post acquired 57% of the shares of a private Swedish postal company,

CityMail Citymail AB is a private postal organisation operating in Sweden (since 1991) and Denmark between 2007 and 2009, competing with the Swedish-Danish state-owned Postnord. They specialize in direct mail and advertising Advertising is the ...

and acquired the remaining 43% in the first quarter of 2006. Norway Post also owns, or partly owns

Nor-Cargo Nor-Cargo AS is a Norwegian cargo transport and logistics company and subsidiary of Posten Norge, the Norwegian Postal Service. It operates road, water and air transport. The company operates through 32 Terminals with 1,000 long-distance ...

as well as Frigoscandia, Pan Nordic Logistics, Scanex B.V., Nettlast Hadeland, many of which have their own subsidiaries.

References

External links

English version of the official site of Norway PostThe four divisions
{{authority control

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

Government-owned companies of Norway Postal system of Norway Government agencies established in 1647 Philately of Norway 1647 establishments in Norway Ministry of Transport (Norway)

History

Expansion

See also

References

External links