Postal code for all the 2008 Olympic venues in Beijing was put into use on Wednesday to speed up the delivery of letters and parcels. 102008, the first zip code for the Olympic Games in history, was put into use here on Wednesday.

The special postal code - 102008 - will help letters for Olympic venues arrive in a safe, fast and smooth way, and enable our company to assign people to serve exclusively for the Beijing Olympic Games, said Xu Xueming, deputy general manager of Beijing Post Company.

The postal code will be in use from August 1 2007 to September 30 2008, said Xu.

Postal codes in Beijing start with the digit "1", while 2008 refers to the Olympic year.