Vienna - Austria's postal service announced Tuesday it would outsource around 20 per cent of its post offices this year to prepare the company for the liberalization of European Union letter services in 2011.

Oesterreichische Post AG, as the service is officially known, said it would close 300 of its 1,500 post offices, while enlisting 450 businesses such as grocery stores and pharmacies to start offering postal services.

The company, in which the state holds a majority stake, said it would not lay off any workers. But the Minister for Transport, Innovation and Technology was not convinced about the outsourcing plans.

"So far there are only announcements," Minister Doris Bures said. "I think we should look at this with a large dose of scepticism."

Oesterreichische Post has closed some 1,000 offices since 2000, but has only replaced 200 of them with service points in private businesses, she said. (dpa)