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Shipping Incident bulletin 27th March 2020
Direct Link Incident Bulletins are sent weekly with information about situations that affect postal distribution world wide. Direct Link Incident Bulletins are published here by permission from Direct Link. Thanks to Direct Link for this valuable service.
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Mail suspention due to Coronavirus
Owing to a lack of transport capacity, below countries are not able to accept and send mail until further notice. This applies to letter-post, parcel post and EMS items (unless stated otherwise).
Central & South America:Â Argentina, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Columbia, Chile, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Rep., Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Reunion, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent, Suriname, Turks & Caicos, Uruguay, Venezuela.
Europe: Albania, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Greece, France*, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Montenegro, Russia, Tajikistan , Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.
North America: USA
Middle East: Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, UAE.
Asia: Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar , Nepal, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Vietnam.
Africa: Benin, Bhutan, Botswana, Burkino Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verdi, Central African Rep., Chad, Congo Republic, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea, Bissau, Ivory Coast , Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia , Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal , Sierra Leone , Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zimbabwe.
Far East & Australasia: American Samoa, Australia, Brunei, Brunei-Darussalam, Fiji , French Polynesia, Kiribati, Laos, Rep. of, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Samoa, Sao Tome, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu.
*France – not accepting mail on 25 March. Offices of exchange FRAINB – FRBLDB – FRCYMA – FRDVRB – FRERNA – FRERNB – FRMCRA – FRSLMB – FRTLSJ will be closed on Monday, 30 March, Tuesday, 31 March and Saturday, 4 April 2020.  As from Monday, 30 March, only items weighing less than 15 kg and with a maximum package size of 32 cm x 24 cm x 24 cm will be delivered by its commercial network. All other packages will be subject to delayed service.
Bulgaria – from 18th March – able to accept letter post and parcel post items sent to destinations for which transport capacities are still available.
Thailand – from 23rd March – is unable to send to Brunei Darussalam, Cayman Islands, Chile, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, French Polynesia, India, Kuwait, Lebanon, Latvia, Maldives, Myanmar, Peru, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Tunisia.
Belarus – from 24th March – is unable to send all mail to a number of countries. Mail exchanges with other designated operators are, however, being carried out as far as possible
Canada – from 24th March – is unable to send outbound mail (letter-post, parcel-post and EMS items) to a number of Union member countries. Please visit https://www.canadapost.ca/cpc/en/our-company/news-and-media/service-alerts.page for up-to-date information on the affected countries.
Jamaica – from 25th March – is currently only able to dispatch outbound mail directly to Miami and to Trinidad and Tobago. Therefore, mail dispatches for other destinations in the Caribbean region and in Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania and South America are suspended as of Wednesday, 25 March 2020.
Jamaica Post is suspending the provision of transit services for all mail classes with immediate effect.
India – 25th March to 14th April –Â postal service is being maintained as an essential service: domestic mail exchanges are continuing, and all international mails received by offices of exchange before 22 March 2020 are being delivered, though with limited staff, and subject to strict regulations announced by the government.
Korea – from 24th March – the processing of outbound mail suspended to Argentina, Australia, the Dem. Rep. of the Congo, Denmark, Gabon, Greece, Hungary, Kenya and Nigeria.
Iceland – from 26th March – unable to send postal items to Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark (including FO and GL), Estonia, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, USA.
Romania – from 27th March – is unable to send outbound EMS items and will no longer accept such items until sufficient transport capacity becomes available.
Countries under quarantine
In order to minimise human contact and protect its workers, the designated operators of below listed countries consider it necessary to significantly reduce its workforce across private and public sectors as well as the logistics chain (from labelling to delivery). As a result, correspondence of all kinds will not benefit from the usual rapidity of service, and the postal operators requests that they be exempt from the UPU’s delivery time and quality measurement requirements.
Naturally, access to post offices is also subject to restrictions and special conditions as part of the preventive measures and for the protection of both staff and customers.
Spain – 14th March to 11th April
Cyprus – from 21st March
Israel – from 22nd March
Luxembourg – from 23rd March
Philippines – 23rd to 12th April
- International mail processing centres will maintain a skeleton workforce in order to accept incoming international dispatches. Inbound items received up to 12 April 2020 will not be processed and forwarded to delivery post offices until the normal work schedule resumes (as from 13 April 2020).
There will be no outbound international dispatches from the international mail processing centres from 17 March 2020 until end of the community quarantine.
Slovakia, Turkey, Papua New Guinea – from 24th March
Malaysia – from 24th March.
- The dispatching of all outbound airmails to the following countries is expected to be severely delayed: Austria, Belgium, China (People’s Rep.), Croatia, Czech Rep., Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and United Kingdom (from 18 March 2020);
Canada and United States of America (from 30 March 2020).
Barbados – from 25th March
South Africa – 25th March to 17th April
Resumption of sending/ processing of mail
The designated operators of below listed countries would like to inform that mail exchanges have been resumed due to COVID – 19 (applies to letter-post, parcel-post and EMS items). However the processing of mail remains subject to disruption.
Aruba – from 26th March