Persons sending mail within and to Jamaica will be required to address their letters differently by the end of the year, if a new postal system promised from last year comes into force.

The new system, which uses numbers and letters and is similar to the codes used in the United States and the United Kingston, is supposed to allow for the easier sorting of mail bound for Jamaica from overseas. It was to be introduced to the capital in July last year but was put on hold as the public had difficulty understanding the system.

According to Gordon Brown, public relations and marketing manager at the Postal Corporation, the system had not been finalised for roll out to the public, but should be ready before year end.

“It has to be done this year, and that is our intention,” Brown told the Sunday Observer last week. He said that following the difficulty some members of the public had in understanding the system last year, it was being fine tuned with the assistance of other government agencies.

“The whole strategy has to be re-thought,” Brown said. “It is essentially a back to the drawing board approach. But one good thing is that a number of other organisations within the government service have taken an interest based on preliminary discussions.”

The Electoral Office of Jamaica and the National Land Agency are among the government bodies that have offered their input in developing the system, Brown disclosed.

Former Postmaster-General Dr Blossom O’Meally Nelson was spearheading the introduction of the new postal code system last July following a pilot carried out in the Kingston 8 area. Under the system, Jamaica was divided into four mailing zones as follows:

. Zone A – Kingston, St Andrew and St Catherine;

. Zone B – St Thomas, St Mary and Portland;

. Zone C – St James, St Ann, Hanover and Trelawny; and

. Zone D – Manchester, St Elizabeth, Clarendon and Westmoreland.

Persons sending mail to and around the island would identify Jamaica with the letters JM – the new country code. The use of the letters JM, O’Meally-Nelson said then, would eliminate the current confusion of the ‘Ja’ with Japan or the Jamaica in Long Island, New York, making it easier for international mail services to sort letters bound for here.

The country code was followed by another letter depicting the zone to which he mail was to be routed, followed by the parish code, and then the code for the relevant post office.

Each parish code consisted of two letters, represented by the first and last letter of the parish name. For example, the code for Kingston is KN; for St Catherine CE; Portland is PD and St Mary is MY.

The ‘saint’ – which appears in seven of 14 parish names – was omitted in the determination.

The post offices were coded numerically, starting at 01. The numbers were applied against an alphabetical listing of the post offices.

The new postal code for, say, Allman Town, therefore would be JMAKNO1 – with JM representing Jamaica, A for the zone, KN for Kingston, and 01 representing the specific post office, Allman Town.

O’Meally Nelson said the codes were developed by an industrial engineer in collaboration with the Postal Corporation’s management, and under the supervision of specialists from the United Postal Union.

She said the switch was necessary to bring Jamaica in line with international best practices, to aid in the speedy sorting of mail, both internationally and locally, and to facilitate transactions through the Internet.

According to Brown, the system was being redrafted “to make it easier and shorter”.

He said, however, it was not the intention to make the sorting of mail fully automated, as is the case in the United Kingdom.