Hongkong Post’s survival won’t come from belt-tightening alone
The postal service must look to successful examples overseas and not shy away from ambitious reforms
When the pop song “Please Mr Postman” topped the US Billboard charts decades ago, few would have expected the daily sight of a uniformed postman delivering letters to every doorstep to become a rarity. For more than a century, the post office in Hong Kong has not only been an essential public service but also a symbol of connectivity and reliability. Yet like many of its overseas counterparts, the government agency is struggling to survive amid an increasingly challenging environment.
Having secured a HK$4.6 billion (US$587 million) bailout from the legislature following eight consecutive years of deficits, Hongkong Post can heave a sigh of relief for now. But it will not be long before it has to face the harsh reality. Unless it can “think out of the postbox” to transform itself and compete with commercial rivals or convince taxpayers to foot its increasingly underutilised and money-losing operation as part of indispensable public services, it may well be consigned to history eventually.
The department’s financial woes call for resolute reforms. Worryingly, it has accumulated nearly HK$2.9 billion in losses since 2017-18, with the 2024-25 deficit of HK$821 million the largest in three decades. Meanwhile, mail volume has fallen by an average of 7 per cent a year from 2019-20 to 2024-25, a cumulative drop of 44 per cent that officials expect to continue or worsen. E-commerce, once a bright spot, now accounts for only around a quarter of revenue, down from nearly half in 2020-21, hit by geopolitical tensions and competition from private couriers.
In this regard, the HK$4.6 billion injection approved by the Legislative Council earlier – including HK$4.09 billion for operations over the next three years and HK$510 million to refurbish the Air Mail Centre – is less a rescue plan than a time-buying stopgap measure. The government must honour its pledge to complete a comprehensive review of the current self-financing trading fund model within three years.
But survival does not come from belt-tightening alone. The department should take a leaf out of the books of postal services overseas. While it cannot just copy and paste others’ experience because of civil service rules and operational limits under the trading fund, the constraints must not become excuses to stay put and wait for another lifeline from the public coffers.