Post_Office_1961-1962 — Page 13

registered articles were despatched, showing an average of registered items handled at well over 25,000 per week. It is obvious that the Centre will soon have to be substantially increased in size.

35. The express delivery service from Hong Kong to Great Britain inaugurated in January, 1961, continued to be extensively used and by the end of the year a total of 6,899 express items had been forwarded, approximately 575 per month. An estimated 19,190,000 air mail items were posted during the year as compared to the previous year's total of 18,195,253, representing an increase of nearly one million items.

36. No loss or violation of air mails for which the Hong Kong Post Office could be held responsible was reported during the year.

China Mails

37. A total of 522,446 bags of mail compared to last year's total of 407,141 were exchanged with China during the year, of which 413,017 were conveyed by the Kowloon-Canton Railway. An average of over 1,300 bags were despatched daily to China during the year.

38. The posting of packets to China continued at a very high level throughout the year and during peak periods motorized junks had to be used on a number of occasions for conveyance of mails up the Pearl River to Canton, supplementary to those despatched by the Kowloon- Canton Railway. The record number of bags despatched to China in a single month was in January, 1962 when 70,183 were forwarded.

Forces Mail

39. Mails for Army, Naval and Air Force units continued to be dealt with by the Fleet Mail Office and British Army Post Office in close liaison with this department.

40. Mail arrangements for visiting foreign warships continued in liaison with their respective national postal administrations.

Christmas and Chinese New Year Postings

41. Christmas postings were again exceedingly heavy, a total of 7,400,000 items being posted during the 10 day period from 18th to 27th December, 1961. This was in addition to the large quantity of mail received from overseas countries for delivery in Hong Kong.

42. The heaviest postings were on 22nd and 23rd December, 1,100,000 items being handled on each of these days.

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