NZ Post has held the ground-breaking ceremony for its new depot in Wellington and is investing NZ$170m to double its parcel-processing capacity from 95 million parcels to 190 million parcels.
The ground-breaking marks significant progress in NZ Post’s overall 10-year plan for parcel growth. The investment programme will include a new processing centre in Wiri, Auckland, due to open in 2023 and an upgrade to the Southern Operations Centre in Christchurch in 2022.
The Wellington super depot is due to open in 2022. It will be located in Grenada, about 10km from Wellington’s city centre, and will have a 10,440 sqm processing floor. During its construction phase, around 350 jobs will be created.
David Walsh, NZ Post’s chief executive, said the organisation forecasted significant growth in New Zealand’s online shopping space, even before the boost in sales experienced during Covid-19.
He commented: “Last year online shopping in New Zealand grew 13% with almost 50% of adult New Zealanders now shopping online, and we are expecting this growth to continue. We’re pleased to be able to invest confidently in our future, to meet the growth in online shopping.”
Shane Jones, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises, added: “As an essential service, posties and couriers worked throughout the COVID-19 Level 4 lockdown to deliver essential items to Kiwis, and they have continued to work through the resulting massive demand for e-commerce.
“New Zealanders will be aware of the issues that surrounded the ability of NZ Post to deal with the huge surge in parcel post during lockdown. This new state of the art depot will provide NZ Post with the capacity to process parcels more quickly and efficiently.”
Only last month, NZ Post received $280 million from the Government, which said it was no longer commercially viable for NZ Post to maintain its current service level. The government funded the postal service with $130m from Budget 2020 while an equity injection of $150m came from the Government's Covid Response and Recovery Fund.
