By determination of 16 July 2008, ICP-ANACOM decided, inter alia, not to oppose the entry into force of the proposed pricing of the universal postal service to take effect from 1 August 2008, notified by CTT pursuant to Price Convention concluded on 10 July 2008, without prejudice to specific analysis to be carried out independently on the proposed discounts applicable to the international editorial mail service.
The variation of prices proposed by CTT for the prices of reserved services - 2.1 percent - was in line with the maximum permitted by the Price Convention for 2008 - 2.2 percent - due to the rate of inflation forecast for 2008 and included in the State Budget for 2008 (2.1 percent), reduced by 0.3 percentage points and increased according to the difference between the rate of inflation seen in 2007 (2.5 percent) and the rate of inflation originally forecast for 2007 and included in the Report of the State Budget for 2007 (2.1 percent).
By determination of 26 November 2008, ICP-ANACOM decided not to oppose the entry into force of the proposed pricing of the universal postal service to take effect from 1 January 2009, notified by CTT pursuant to the cited Price Convention concluded on 10 July 2008. Notwithstanding this decision, ICP-ANACOM informed CTT that future pricing proposals should contribute significantly to the tariff rebalancing envisaged in the Price Convention. The variation of prices of reserved services proposed by CTT for 2009 - 2.9 percent - enables compliance with the maximum allowed variation under the Price Convention - 2.9 per cent -, resulting from the value of inflation forecast for 2009 and included in the State Budget for 2009 (2.5 percent), reduced by 0.4 percentage points and increased by the difference between the rate of inflation projected for 2008 in the Report on the State Budget for 2009 (2.9 percent) and the value of inflation initially forecast for 2008 and entered in the Report of the State Budget for 2008 (2.1 percent).
Additionally with respect to the proposed pricing of the universal postal service presented by CTT to take effect from 1 January 2009, by determination of 17 December 2008, ICP-ANACOM likewise decided not to oppose the entry into force of discounts associated with the use of franking machines, presented by CTT on 28 November 2008.
Regarding the disclosure of information to users and citizens in general, ICP-ANACOM's website added a direct link to CTT's web site where the prices of the universal postal service are published.
Between 1993 1 and 2008, the price of the base tariff (national price of sending a letter of 20 grams) of non-priority postage ("correio normal") fell in real terms by 6.9 percent and the price of the basic rate of national priority mail ("correio azul") fell by 21.1 percent in real terms between 1993 and 2008, as shown in the following chart.
Graph 39. Evolution of the base tariff in real terms (1993 = 100): non-priority mail ("correio normal") and priority mail ("correio azul")
1 Year of application of the first Price Convention concluded between ICP-ANACOM, CTT, and the then Direcção-Geral do Comércio e da Concorrência (Directorate General for Trade and Competition).
