DOHA: The facility of having personalised postage stamps printed will be extended to post office branches in shopping malls in Doha, Ali Mohammad Al Ali, chairman, General Postal Corporation (Q-Post) revealed yesterday. Since its commercial launch last week, the facility has received an overwhelming response, especially from the various expatriate communities, he added.
Ali said that among the new locations where the personalised postage stamps service will be provided are the City Center, Landmark Mall, The Mall, Hyatt Plaza and the LuLu Hypermarket. "We found that expatriates just love to have their own pictures stamps and these venues are where they visit the most. Hence, we are considering extending this facility to these shopping malls," he added.
Under the service, any person can have a sheet of 10 postage stamps printed with their picture, or of their families and kids or objects such as cars. The cost per sheet is QR15 and the customer gets QR5 worth postage stamps - each worth half a Riyal. This service is currently available at the Philatelic Bureau of the Doha General Post Office only.
George Scott-Campbell, director, IT services at Q-Post, disclosed that within the first two days of the launch last week, Q-Post had issued over 100 sheets of such personalised postage stamps. The wide interest, he noted, was caused by the extensive publicity the service received through the local media.
Q-Post, he said, offers personalised stamps of two varieties: one bearing an image of the customer, taken by staff at the Philatelic Bureau with a digital camera. Secondly, they can also bring along a picture, which will be scanned and the image printed on the stamps.
Q-Post, he said, would showcase the personalised postage stamp facility at three major international philatelic exhibitions including the one to be held in Dubai next month, another in Sydney, Australia and the third in Japan, where Qatar has its own pavilion.
Q-Post yesterday opened a new branch in the Al Muntazah suburb of Doha, adjacent to the Al Muntazah Cooperative's department store.
Ali Mohammad Al Ali, chairman, Q-Post, accompanied by senior officials from the corporation, cut a ribbon to formally open the new post office and visited the various facilities at the premises.
Speaking to the media, Ali said the Al Muntazah branch was the 27th post office to be opened in the country and will offer Q-Post's full range of services.
There are five counters. Extra counters have been provided to facilitate Qatar Telecom (Qtel) and the Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) for bill payment facilities to customers. A counter has also been reserved for the Immigration Department for Residence Permit renewal facility, he added.
The Al Muntazah Post Office, which operates from rented premises, he said, offers 612 post boxes for subscribers. A slot has also been left for the Qatar National Bank to install an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) on the premises.
Ali revealed that the ATM would be provided under a recent agreement with QNB which allows the bank to install 12 such machines at various post offices. QNB, he disclosed, would also open a branch at the Doha General Post Office within two months and construction work on this premises was currently ongoing, he added.
© The Peninsula 2005
