1789. 🇫🇯 Fiji Commemorates 45 Years Of Relations With China.

 

  🇫🇯 Post Fiji issued a set of 4 stamps on 5 November 2020 to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with The People’s Republic Of China. The issue was launched at a ceremony attended by officials of Post Fiji and of the Chinese Embassy in Suva and I assume the issue is another one of those gifts from China to a small postal service with which we have become familiar over recent years. This very attractive issue highlights costumes and sports of the two countries and emphasises again how pervasive and clever the Chinese authorities are in using stamp collecting as a way of gaining friends and influencing people (or in this case countries). Rating:- ****.

  Thanks to super for drawing my attention to this issue.

  As the final month of the year arrives, an update of which Commonwealth philatelic entities have not yet issued (or are not yet about to issue) any stamps during 2020:-

Anguilla, Ascension, Barbados, Belize, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, ESwatini, Lesotho, Montserrat, Nauru, Rwanda, St Kitts, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Turks And Caicos Islands, Uganda and Zambia - a total of 17.

🇬🇧 Royal Mail will increase its postal rates on 1 January 2021 with 8 new stamps resulting:- £1.70p Machin Head definitives (M21L MAIL and printed by Walsall instead of De La Rue)(100g Letter rate to Europe and 20g Worldwide rate), £1.70 England regional stamp, £1.70 Northern Ireland regional, £1.70 Scotland regional, £1.70 Wales regional, £2.55 Machin Head (issued originally in 2017 and now reissued with M21L MAIL code), £3.25 Machin Head (M21L MAIL) (Europe Large letter rate) and £4.20 Machin Head (M21L MAIL) (Worldwide Large letter rate). No new stamps are necessitated by the change in domestic letter rates 2nd (66p) and 1st (85p). The date of issue of all the new stamps will be 23 December 2020. The regional stamps were lithographed by International Security Printers and the national definitives printed in photogravure by ISP and are perforated 15 x 14.