toll free number 800 – SIEMENS (7436367)
Berlin’s Mayor visits Saudi Post Headquarter in Riyadh
Berlin is keen to increase the chances for German companies to participate in the growing market of Saudi Arabia. Therefore the mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, and a delegation of decision makers from various fields of economy, culture and education visited Riyadh between February 25th and March 2nd 2011.
Riyadh, March 2, 2011
From Left: Mr. Momper, Mr. Lankow, Mr. Wowereit, Dr. Benten during the visit of Postal Sorting Center in Saudi Post Headquarter in Riyadh
Berlin’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Riyadh-based German-Saudi Arabian Liaison Office for Economic Affairs (GESALO) had organized the trade visit in cooperation with the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI). The mayor held talks with Riyadh Governor Prince Salman, his Riyadh counterpart Prince Abdulaziz Al-Ayyaf, and Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah. Wowereit appreciated Saudi Arabia’s progressive efforts in grooming national talent. Additional he pointed out that Berlin’s exports to the Kingdom had risen 600 percent from 41 million euros to 265 million euros during the past 10 years.
The second day of the visit was dedicated for business meetings to boost this trade cooperation. One highlight was the bilateral meeting between Klaus Wowereit and the President of Saudi Post Dr. Mohammed Saleh Benten. Out of this visit the delegation received an inside view about the state of the art postal automation technology integrated by Siemens Mobility. During this visit the Head of Mobility in Saudi Arabia, Hartwig Lankow, underlined the importance of long term commitment which Siemens Mobility introduced with their dedicated training and maintenance support.
The Saudi Post is currently undergoing a major transformation from traditional methods to a new electronic service featuring fully automated distribution. This is no an easy task, especially considering the language challenge. Most international and business mails are in English. However, the language of correspondence within the country is Arabic, which is written from right to left making it more difficult in this country of 28 million.
Now, Saudi Post has introduced a new system that uses a satellite grid and geographic coordinates to assign each house with its own unique number. This has suddenly enabled them to organize the areas they service with a great degree of precision- and has provided Siemens with an excellent starting point for its automated mail sorting system.
From Right: Mr. Lankow (Siemens Ltd., Mobility), Mr. Schreiber (Siemens AG, Mobility), Mr. Wowereit (Mayor of Berlin), Mr. Momper (President of House of Parliament of Berlin) and Dr. Benten (President of Saudi Post)
Another step by Saudi Post into the future is to make the sorting of big and small parcels easier. Saudi Post is evaluating a proposal submitted by Siemens for developing a new sorting centre in Riyadh which will be a hub for the posts and parcels distribution throughout Saudi Arabia.
Siemens Postal Automation is one of the first companies in the world to supply mail culling, facing and canceling technology. During the last 10 years, Siemens has improved this technology to the extent that there is no other solution on the market which offers such high throughput and availability and at the same time the lowest error rates.