compared to 624,520 in the previous year. The total included 293,423 small packets returned from China during the year. It was possible to deliver 269,768 of these back to senders.
SURFACE LETTER MAILS
45. Shipping services which were available during the year made it possible to form more frequent despatches to most parts of the world. 46. New direct surface despatches were introduced to the following places:
Office of Exchange
San Jose
Accra
Dili
Suva
Noumea R.P.
Country Costa Rica Ghana
Portuguese Timor
Fiji Islands
New Caledonia
Santo
New Hebrides
Papeete Kampala
,,,
Dar-es-Salaam
Tahiti
Uganda Tanganyika
47. In the reverse direction closed despatches were received for the first time from Christmas Island, Colon, Mombasa, and Birmingham Foreign.
48. No violation of letter mails shipped from Hong Kong was reported and a very strict control continued to be maintained on the manner in which mails loaded by the Hong Kong Post Office were stored.
AIR MAIL
49. An Air Mail Centre was opened at Hong Kong Airport on 29th May, 1960 and provided, amongst other things, for air mail to be dealt with on the spot thus dispensing with the necessity for transit air mails to be transported to and from the Kowloon Sorting Office.
50. An express delivery service from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom was inaugurated in January 1961.
51. New air mail despatches were received from Usumbura (Congo Rep.), Vnukovo (U.S.S.R.), Guayaquil (Ecuador), Kobenhavn-Lufthavn (Denmark), Havaalani (Turkey), Leopoldville, Punta Arenas and Kuwait.
52. The estimated number of air mail items posted again showed an increase, 18,195,253 items being posted as compared to the previous year's total of 17,697,700.
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