Posten Norge or Norway Post is the name of the Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 postal service

Mail

Mail, or post, is a system for transporting letters and other tangible objects: written documents, typically enclosed in envelopes, and also small packages are delivered to destinations around the world. Anything sent through the postal system is called mail or post.In principle, a postal service...

. The word posten means the post or the mail in Norwegian. The company, owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications

Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications

The Royal Norwegian Ministry of Transportation and Communications is a Norwegian ministry established in 1946, and is responsible for transportation and communication infrastructure in Norway. It is led by Magnhild Meltveit Kleppa...

 holds a monopoly

Monopoly

A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...

 on distribution of mail throughout the country.

History

Posten was founded in 1647 under the name Postvesenet by Henrik Morian. It was established as a private company, and the Dano-Norwegian king Christian IV gave his blessing to the founding of the company. Postvesenet was privately run until 1719, when the Dano-Norwegian

Dano-Norwegian

Dano-Norwegian is a linguistic term for a koiné that evolved among the urban elite in Norwegian cities during the later years of the union between the Kingdoms of Denmark and Norway . It is from this koiné that Riksmål and Bokmål developed...

 state took over. From that point on, national postal service was a state monopoly. The local city postal services remained private, but in 1888 a new postal law was introduced which expanded the monopoly to the entire country.

In 1933, Postvesenet was renamed to Postverket. In 1996, Posten Norge BA was established as a state-owned company in which the Norwegian state had limited liability

Limited liability

Limited liability is a concept where by a person's financial liability is limited to a fixed sum, most commonly the value of a person's investment in a company or partnership with limited liability. If a company with limited liability is sued, then the plaintiffs are suing the company, not its...

. In 2002 Posten changed its corporate structure into a stock company

Aksjeselskap

Aksjeselskap is the Norwegian term for a stock-based company. It is usually abbreviated AS or A/S, especially when used in company names. An AS is always a limited company, i.e. the owners cannot be held liable for any debt beyond the stock capital...

, as a process of preparing the company to an expected deregulation

Deregulation

Deregulation is the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces.Deregulation is the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces.Deregulation is the removal or...

 of the Norwegian postal market. Posten Norge AS is still fully owned by the Norwegian state and the liberalization process has been postponed until 2011 by the government .

The postal service is divided into four divisions : Post, Logistics, Distribution Network and ErgoGroup AS

ErgoGroup

thumb|250px|From IT-tinget 2007 in TønsbergErgoGroup is a Nordic information technology corporation, systems integrator and consulting company headquartered in Oslo, Norway. The company operates within IT operations, business solutions, outsourcing, infrastructure and consulting...

. The latter specializing in electronic services and outsourcing.

Expansion

In 2002 the private Swedish postal company CityMail

CityMail

Bring Citymail AB is a private postal organisation owned by Posten Norge, operating in Sweden and Denmark , competing with the state-owned Posten Sverige and Post Danmark. Bring Citymail closed down distribution in Denmark at the end of 2009.They specialize in direct mail and...

 was partly bought, with Norway Post acquiring 57% of the shares in 2002 and the remaining 43% in the first quarter of 2006. Norway Post also owns, or partly owns Nor-Cargo

Nor-Cargo

Nor-Cargo AS is a Norwegian cargo transport and logistics company and subsidiary ofPosten Norge, the Norwegian Postal Service. It operates road, water and air transport. The company operates through 32 Terminals with 1,000 long-distance and 600 distribution trucks...

, Frigoscandia, Box Solutions, Box- Group/-Delivery, Pan Nordic Logistics (PNL), Scanex B.V., Nettlast Hadeland, which many have their own subsidiaries.

See also

• Posten (Sweden)
  Posten (Sweden)
  Posten AB is the name of the Swedish postal service. The word "posten" means "the post" or "the mail" in Swedish.Posten was established in 1636 by Axel Oxenstierna under the name Kungliga Postverket , although its origins can be traced further back, and it was operated as a government agency into...
  
  , the Swedish
  Sweden
  Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
  
   postal service
• List of oldest companies

External links

• http://www.posten.no/Portal/English/ - English version of the official site of Norway Post
• http://posten.no/Portal/English/AboutNorwayPost/CompanyActivity/DivisionsCorporateStaffUnits/ The four divisions
• http://posten.no/NR/exeres/1D80E9E8-2DEA-44FA-999A-93A2A1E43DC7,frameless.htm?NRMODE=Published Norway Post Logistics subsidiaries