MAJURO — The United States Postal Service has offered to delay application of international mailing rates to the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia until at least 2006, according to Marshall Islands negotiators.
The U.S. government announcement earlier this year that it planned to change the Marshall Islands from a domestic to international mailing zone prompted an outcry from the private sector that depends heavily on mail service from the United States. Despite being in the central Pacific, under compacts of free association with the U.S., the two countries have U.S. zip codes and are treated as domestic mailing zones. The proposed change would increase postal rates approximately four-fold.
