Poșta Română opens €3M Cluj hub to counter regional logistics competition

Poșta Română has launched a new €3 million logistics hub in Cluj-Napoca to decentralize its customs and sorting operations. The investment, funded by a loan from Exim Banca Românească, aims to allow goods arriving from Western Europe to undergo customs formalities locally rather than being automatically routed through Bucharest.

Valentin Ștefan, General Director of Poșta Română, stated that the company is facing intense competition from regional neighbors like Hungary and Poland. He noted that since last year, the Chinese e-commerce platform Temu has shifted the customs processing of its Asian parcels to Hungary and Poland. This shift has resulted in Romania losing revenue from customs duties, VAT, and commissions, as well as potential jobs.

The new Cluj hub has a capacity to process up to 7,000 parcels per hour. Through automation, the company expects to reduce processing times from approximately six hours to three hours. This modernization is part of a broader strategy to expand regional hubs in cities such as Galați, Oradea, Timișoara, and Bucharest to better capture the growing volumes of international e-commerce traffic from platforms like Temu and Shein.