KUALA LUMPUR (May 4): Pos Malaysia Bhd is still waiting for clarity from the government on whether it can raise the postal tariff hike, said group chief executive officer Datuk Mohd Shukrie Mohd Salleh.

"This matter has been raised by not only Pos Malaysia, but also the deputy minister of multimedia and communications. On our part, after a certain number of years, Pos Malaysia can put it in a proposal to gradually raise the postal tariff," Mohd Shukrie told reporters today.

He was speaking to reporters after attending a memorandum of collaboration signing between Pos Malaysia and electronic commerce retailer Lazada Malaysia Sdn Bhd to establish an electronic commerce regional distribution center at the former low cost carrier terminal site in Sepang.

"Pos Malaysia will be waiting for the government to announce its decision on whether to allow for another round of postal tariff hike or not," he said noting that "the government will not be paying for compensation if it [decides to] delay or postpone the hike".

As to when the government, via the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, is expected to announce the decision, Mohd Shukrie said: "If you ask me, I would love for the timing of the postal tariff hike to be done last year. But let's not speculate anything for now."

Presently, Malaysia is one of the countries in Asean which has the lowest postal tariff structure, according to Mohd Shukrie.

"Given the geographical ratio of Malaysia, I would say we are probably among the lowest. The rate now is around 60 sen, whether you are sending the mail to Petaling Jaya or Sabah and Sarawak," Mohd Shukrie said, noting that at the current tariff, Pos Malaysia does "a lot of cross subsidy of mails and parcels sent among the states".

The last round of comprehensive tariff hike was implemented in 2010 for domestic postal services, and 2013 for international postal services.

In November 2016, RHB Research estimated that every 10% increase in the postal tariff could result in a 22% rise in Pos Malaysia earnings.

Meanwhile, Mohd Shukrie said Pos Malaysia will be investing RM60 million to build the new e-commerce distribution center in Sepang.

"This facility will provide value-added services such as air-sea-land transportation solutions, international transhipment, postal and courier services and warehousing facilities, among others," he said.

"It will be able to handle a capacity of 182,000 tonnes of items annually. Next year, we target to [handle] 34 million items followed by 64 million items in 2019," Mohd Shukrie added.