NEC has updated Hongkong Post's postal automation system, providing the ability for reading and sorting addresses writing in traditional Chinese characters.

The new function has been introduced to 15 systems delivered to Hongkong Post and currently in operation at the Central Mail Centre in Kowloon Bay, enabling automatic sorting and processing of up to 564,000 postal items per hour.

NEC says Hong Kong has seen a rise in the number of postal items addressed in traditional Chinese characters in recent years, necessitating an automated sorting and processing facility to handle Chinese characters, as well as those written or printed in English.

The IT and network technologies vendor says the addition of the Chinese character reading functionality has contributed to the improvement of Hongkong Post's operational efficiency.

NEC has been working with Hongkong Post for around 30 years, since the postal operator introduced a postal automation system in the late 1980s.