China Post's Xiamen mail operations centre has held a ground breaking ceremony to mark the start of its construction, Logistics Week reported.

The new facility will sort mail and express packages from southwestern Fujian province, including the cities of Xiamen, Zhangzhou, Quanzhou and Longyan, as well as the distribution of mail from the rest of the province and eastern Guangdong.

The operations centre was also designed to be an important distribution hub for mail between mainland China and Taiwan.

The first phase of the facility will have 38,000 cubic metres at its disposal and is expected to be finished by 2011. By that time, Xiamen's annual mail handling capacity will reach 31 million packages, more than three times current capacity.