INCREASE IN POSTAGE RATES (Justification)

Dr Lee Siew-Choh asked the Minister for Communications and Information what is the justification for the recently announced increase in postage rates.

The Minister for Communications and Information (Dr Yeo Ning Hong): Mr Speaker, Sir, on 1st July 1989, Telecoms adjusted the rates of a number of postal and telecommuncations services. Some of them went down. Others went up. Overall, customers of Telecoms will save about $11 million per year as a result of this round of adjustments.

It has always been Telecoms' policy to price each service according to the cost of providing it. This way, customers stand to benefit. They pay only for the service they use and not for those that they do not.

In general, labour intensive services show rate increases, while technology intensive services experience rate decreases. Over the last decade, as a result of high productivity and increased use of technology, Telecoms has been able to reduce its rates on a large number of occasions, so that cumulatively over the last 10 years customers of Telecoms had savings of over $2,400 million. Today, postal and telecommunications services in Singapore are among the lowest in the world.

With your permission, Sir, I would ask the Clerk of Parliament to circulate some of the rates (Cols. 397 - 402) that we have for postal and services in Singapore as compared with other countries. (Copies of document distributed to Members of the House). rates - SINGAPORE OUTGOING TELEX RATES VS. CORRESPONDING INCOMING RATES, SINGAPORE IDD RATES VS. CORRESPONDING INCOMING RATES, COMPARISON OF POSTAGE RATE FOR A 20 GRAMME DOMESTIC LETTER (Cols. 397 - 402)

Dr Lee Siew-Choh (Non-Constituency Member): Sir, is the increase in the postage an admission of inflation in the country?

Dr Yeo Ning Hong: Sir, the Member obviously has not been listening to the answer because overall there has been a decrease in rates collectively, combining both the postal as well as telecommunications services.

Dr Lee Siew-Choh: Those who have benefitted are not the ordinary man-in-the-street, Sir.

Dr Yeo Ning Hong: Sir, 90% of the postal services are used by commercial companies. And as for the ordinary consumers, people who use both postal and telecommunications services, they will also benefit from the reduction in telecommunications services.