Empresa Brasileira de Correios e Telégrafos, abbreviated as ECT, also known as Correios, is a state-owned company that operates the national postal service of Brazil since the seventeenth century. The company created and manages the Brazilian postal code system known as Código de Endereçamento Postal. It also provides e-commerce platform, banking acting as proxy of Banco do Brasil, Boleto bill payment collection and express mail serviceSedex, with its international service network reaching more than 220 countries worldwide. It is the largest employer in Brazil with more than 109,000 own employees and outsourced, being the only company to be present in all municipalities in the country, with a wide network of owned and franchised units. The company is fully owned by the Federal Government of Brazil and subordinated to the Ministry of Communications.
History
The Post Office had its origin in Brazil on 25 January 1663. In 1931 the Decree №20.859 of 26 December merged the Directorate General of Posts to the General Bureau of Telegraphs and creates the Department of Posts and Telegraph. The new name and status, ECT, was created 20 March 1969 as a public company under the Ministry of Communications through the transformation of the Federal Authority which was then the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. In the years that followed, several services were being incorporated into the portfolio. Besides the traditional services of letters, courier, postage and telegrams among the new services can be highlighted those belonging to the SEDEX family, express delivery service. In August 2013 the company has provided 2,000 of its mail delivery staff with smartphones to provide real-time information on their deliveries. The move is the first phase of a new Mobility in the Postal Service project in which the company is looking to allow customers to track their deliveries in real time on the Internet. The first phase covered the SEDEX 10 express service in various states. In December 2013 the company inaugurated its second hybrid mail production center in Santa Catarina. The new facility near Florianópolis will serve the south and the states of Ceará and Bahia. It has the ability to scan and produce 2.7m items each month, a little smaller than the Brasilia plant's 4.5m capacity, which was opened in August of that year. At the moment, the two plants together are producing about 2.5m mailpieces a month, including communications for the Ministry of Health and notifications for the Federal Highway Police and the Judiciary. The company is also planning to open a facility in São Paulo later this year, while next year facilities will be opened in Belém, Salvador and Belo Horizonte as the company's hybrid mail capabilities expand. In February 2014 it was reported that Correios has inked an agreement with its Italian counterpart Poste Italiane to launch a mobile virtual network operator in Brazil. Until then Brazil had two MVNOs, Portoseguro and Datora. In October of that year National Presort Inc. has won a $11m contract to upgrade sorting technology, which will see the replacement of controlled electronics, barcode readers and software within existing sorting machinery of Correios.
Logo history
Before 1970 Correios used governmental insignia to identify itself. From 1970 Correios used a logo designed by architectural student Eduardo J. Rodrigues in a public competition. From 1990 on this logo became part of a new logo which basically added a textmark and afforded a colour scheme as part of a broader visual identity. To celebrate its 350th anniversary Correios requested the agency CDA to design a new logo which takes recourse to the original design by Eduardo J. Rodrigues and has been in use since May 2014.
Sponsorship
Correios was one of the benefactor of the Jordan Grand Prix in the 1994–Formula One season.
