A new letter-sorting system will be installed in phases this year which will save HK$7 million annually and allow quicker mail delivery, the Postmaster General said yesterday.
At present, Hongkong Post sorts letters through an optical character reader. If it fails to read an address, the letter is put in a video coding machine for postmen to identify manually. Another machine sorts the mail by district.
The new machine combines the three functions and can process 32,000 letters every hour compared with 20,000 now.
'The new system will improve the accuracy and efficiency of letter sorting,' Postmaster General Tam Wing-pong said. 'Less manpower will be anticipated thus cutting staff overtime. The manpower saved will be allocated to other needed sections such as front desks.'
Albert Li Chau-ming, acting assistant postmaster general for corporate development, said the new machine would boost the read rate of addresses from 45 per cent to 70 per cent.
The new system could read only printed English, Mr Li said, as existing technology did not cover Chinese characters. He said 30 per cent of the mail had to be identified manually because some letters were too big, or the addresses were written wrongly.