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COMMUNICATIONS AND THE MEDIA
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Post Offices and the International Mail Centre the aim is to have the letter mail despatched on the same day if outgoing flights are available. Other airmail postings are generally despatched to their overseas destinations within 24 hours.
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During 1986, a total of 618 million letters and parcels - a daily average of 1.7 million was handled, an increase of 9.4 per cent compared with the 1985 figure. About 4 018 tonnes of letter mail and 4 372 tonnes of parcels were despatched abroad by air during the year, an overall increase of 8.5 per cent over the previous year.
The Speedpost service continued to grow rapidly, and is now available to 536 cities in 47 countries, including all major trading partners of Hong Kong, such as Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States. During the year, 1 409 412 items were handled, an increase of 27.6 per cent over 1985.
The Intelpost service is now available to 39 major destinations including Argentina, Australia, China, Denmark, West Germany, the Irish Republic, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Portugal, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States. It offers high speed facsimile transmission of high quality black and white reproductions of documents, handwritten material, drawings and personal messages up to A4 size (210mm x 297mm). These items can be accepted at the special counters in any of the 26 accepting offices, and will be available for delivery within hours at the overseas destinations. Facilities are also available to accept for overseas delivery Intelpost items transmitted over the local telephone network direct from facsimile machines operated by commercial organisations in Hong Kong.
A new official aerogramme printed on white paper was introduced in September to replace the traditional plain blue one. The new aerogramme bears a $1.30 stamp depicting a stylised map of Hong Kong.
Lei Cheng Uk, Lok Fu, Ngau Tau Kok and Aberdeen Post Offices were relocated in bigger premises during the year to cope with the rising postal demand in their districts. There are now 103 post offices in the territory.
The Post Office issued five sets of special stamps in 1986. The first of these, issued in February, consisted of four stamps commemorating the return of Halley's Comet. A miniature sheet comprising a set of these four stamps was also released. To honour the 60th birthday of Her Majesty the Queen, a set of five stamps was issued on April 21. This set of stamps formed part of the Crown Agents omnibus series issued in conjunction with 22 other postal administrations.
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In July, a set of four stamps depicting the themes of transport, finance, trade and communications was issued to mark the participation of Hong Kong at the 1986 World Exposition in Vancouver, Canada. Another set of four stamps featuring four types of old and new fishing vessels found in Hong Kong waters was released in September. The last set of special stamps was issued in December. It consisted of four stamps depicting four 19th century portrait paintings kept as part of the art collections in the Hong Kong Museum of Art and by the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. In addition to these special stamp issues, commemorative covers franked with a special datestamp were released on October 21, to mark the second visit to Hong Kong by the Queen. For use on these covers, the special stamps issued on the occasion of the Queen's 60th birthday were again placed on sale on the first day of the Royal visit.
First day covers were also issued on December 30 to mark the introduction in Hong Kong of postage labels issued from a Frama label issuing machine which was installed at the General Post Office.