promising the fastest delivery system the Island has ever seen.

Last week the delivery company moved to the former Staples warehouse on Serpentine Road, and announced that up to four customs officers would be on site to speed up delivery time to customers. Now building is in progress to provide offices and secure areas for processing documents.

FedEx is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on upgrading the warehouse into a state-of-the art processing centre which gives the Bermuda office an extra 10,000 square feet to work in.

From September the daily FedEx flights which land in Bermuda will unload directly into FedEx vans which will be sealed with special tape by customs officers, before being taken to the depot. There they will be taken through to a specially built restricted area on site where customs will do their inspections before packages are put into vans and delivered to customers.

Roger Moniz of FedEx said: "We will have the fastest delivery time you can get into Hamilton.

"The time of delivery in general will be considerably sped up. And there will be no extra charges to customers.'' This is despite FedEx possibly incurring extra charges to have its own customs officials on-site.

The new service promises that any documents sent overnight from the US could be in Hamilton ready for collection and delivery by 10 a.m. in Hamilton.

At the moment a package sent overnight from the US would not be available for pick up or delivery until 2.30 p.m.

The process of dutiable packages promises to be quicker as well and same day pick up is expected. Previously the company had to wait in line with UPI, DHL, Swift and IBC at a clearing depot at the airport before being allowed to move its goods and take them to a sorting centre in Hamilton.

The company's Par-la-Ville offices have officially been closed since last Saturday and the company moved lock stock and barrel to the empty main Staples warehouse in Serpentine Road in Pembroke. The front office is open for business, but admin staff currently have to work in the open warehouse while construction is finished on the new offices.

The company has gone from having 3,600 square of office space to 13,000 square feet at the new site.

The lot only became vacant a few weeks ago and work will be on-going for the next few months to set up the facility and new offices.

Mailboxes Unlimited now has the only Hamilton locations for dropping off FedEx packages, but customers will still be able to go to the new depot and mail from there. The Mailboxes sites are at Church Street, across from City Hall and on Par-la-Ville, behind Portofino. They will offer all FedEx services.

And any packages dropped off by 5.30 p.m. at the depot will be guaranteed next morning US delivery and the company will be continuing with its daily flights from Newark and Boston.