Bermuda's letters, bills and other mail could soon be arriving to local addresses in two to three days from initiatives announced from the Telecommunications Minister Terry Lister yesterday.

Starting the first of next month, the Bermuda Mail Processing Centre will increase its operating hours from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Mondays to Fridays.

International mail will also reach its destination in less time because the Processing Centre, since October 4, now opens on Saturdays.

Now any international mail posted on Friday afternoons and usually had to wait till Monday or Tuesday to leave, can depart on the Saturday and Sunday.

Finally, any registered letters, parcels, and express mail can be tracked online at www.mailtracking.gov.bm. The tracing system is managed for Bermuda through the Universal Postal Union a division of the United Nations.

Yesterday Minister Lister said these initiatives were all meant to continually evolve the Island's postal system and make Bermuda more competitive.

In a news conference yesterday he said: "The Bermuda Post Office has been evolving relentlessly to meet and exceed the needs of its customers.

"The Bermuda Post Office has realigned several of its core functions and has moved to position itself to capitalise on new competitive mail service products along with processing and delivery methods in an effort to increase customer service and be competitive in the local and international postal marketplace."

Each year the Post Office processes about 15 million pieces of mail and about 30 percent of the locally addressed is delivered the next day.

Postmaster General George Outerbridge, however, stressed that they were working on regular deliveries between two to three days, but many times mail took long to process because of incorrect addresses.

He added: "Currently about 30 percent is next day delivery. We are delivering most within four working days and we are striving for two to three days.

"There are a lot of things that affects delivery of mail; incomplete addresses, if they do not include their postcode."