Cathay Pacific opens new cargo terminal
Jan-30-2014 By : agxadmin
Cathay Pacific Airways has officially launched a new cargo terminal at Hong Kong airport which will help the city, facing fierce rivalry from Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport, enhance its position as the leading airfreight hub. Cathay Pacific Services, a wholly-owned cargo subsidiary of Hong Kong’s flag carrier, opened the HKD5.9 billion terminal that can handle 2.6 million tons of cargo annually, Algernon Yau, CEO of the unit, told Shanghai Daily. The Cathy Pacific Cargo Terminal will increase Hong Kong International Airport’s overall annual cargo capacity by 50% to 7.4 million tons, Yau said. He added that Hong Kong faced intense competition from airports on the Chinese mainland. Shanghai, which has established a pilot free trade zone, intends to elevate Pudong Airport into the world’s busiest cargo hub in five years. Guangzhou is building an Airport Economic Zone, while Shenzhen airport will complete its third runway soon.
Shanghai FTZ offers potential to reduce shipping times
By : agxadmin
Transferring cargo in the Shanghai free trade zone (FTZ) could reduce shipping times significantly. DHL was selected as the first in the sector to test the waters of the international transshipment business in the pilot area. The company has launched its first international transit air route that offers transfers in Shanghai. It is also the first of its kind to operate in China. The new route could save eight hours out of the three-day journey from Leipzig to Tokyo compared with the old route via Hong Kong, according to Qian Xiaorong, Project Manager at the DHL North Asia logistic center at Pudong International Airport, which handles the operation of the new route. In the center, cargo from international transshipments is unpacked, sorted and repackaged according to destinations, without having to receive customs checks or pay duties. As a key index to measure the internationalization level of an airport, international transshipments usually account for more than 50% of the total cargo volume at hub airports. As the largest cargo airport in China and the third-largest worldwide, Pudong airport handles 3 million tons of cargo a year. Before international transshipment was introduced in the free trade zone, such cargo could only go to Japan or Singapore. “Shanghai has the potential to become an international hub for cargo transport because it is better positioned than Hong Kong and Singapore, in terms of being a shorter distance to Europe and the United States,” said Qian. Such an advantage becomes more apparent using the polar route over the Arctic, which could save up to four hours of flight time compared with traditional routes, she said. With only one route, the center seems to be underutilized with its 88,000 sq m area and a capacity to handle 40,000 parcels and envelopes per hour. DHL plans to launch more international transshipment air routes next year, the China Daily reports. In the first 10 months of this year, the volume of transshipment cargo at Pudong airport has surged by 125% compared with the same period last year. Pudong airport also plans to upgrade and expand its air cargo facilities. The air cargo volume at Pudong airport is expected to reach 5 million to 7 million tons a year in 2015.
UPS to deliver more parcels in China
By : agxadmin
United Parcel Service (UPS) is looking to keep an upper hand in the Chinese market by adding 14 inner-city express services next year. UPS began domestic courier services in 2012, when it was granted seven licenses by the State Post Bureau of China. It expanded to 19 first- and second-tier cities last year and expects to reach 33 cities in 2014. UPS CEO Scott Davis said that China’s middle class will grow significantly over the next 20 years and more delivery services will be needed, so the company wants to expand its network in the country. China is now the world’s third-largest market for express services behind the United States and Japan. Last year, 8,200 express companies were operating in China, compared with 5,327 in 2010. The average number of pieces of mail and packages delivered amounted to 143 million a day in 2012, according to the Beijing-based China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP). UPS owns and operates two large hubs in the country. In Guangdong province, its Shenzhen Intra-Asia Hub provides services for customers doing business with emerging Asian economies, while the company’s Shanghai international hub links Asia to the rest of the world. It also set up three regional hubs in Qingdao, Chengdu and Zhengzhou in the past three years. UPS has 399,000 employees across the world, with 6,170 in China. The company operates 208 weekly flights connecting China to the U.S., Europe and destinations across Asia. UPS also established a specialist facility with 22,000 square meters of storage space in Hangzhou to handle shipments of medical products. “There are a lot of areas that we’re looking at and we’ll invest in them as time goes on,” said Richard Loi, UPS China President in China.
Toxic package killed one, sickened nine in November
By : agxadmin
A factory manager and the owner of a Shanghai-based delivery service were detained by police after packages tainted with a toxic chemical killed one man and sickened nine other people. The incident triggered a nationwide order from central authorities for postal and courier services to strengthen checks on package contents before they accept them. Delivery companies not following the rules would have their license revoked. Liu Xingliang, a resident of Dongying in Shandong province, suffered methyl fluoroacetate poisoning after he accepted a package containing shoes delivered by Shanghai YTO Express in late November, according to the Shandong Post Bureau. The Bureau said four parcels delivered by the company were contaminated with methyl fluoroacetate, a toxic liquid widely used in the pharmaceutical industry. The chemical leaked out when workers unloaded parcels from a truck on the night of November 28. The toxic package had been sent from a chemical plant in Jingmen, Hubei province, to a pharmaceutical plant in Weifang in Shandong. During transport, the package was damaged, and the leaked chemical poisoned five delivery workers and two recipients in Shandong’s Shouguang and Jiaozhou cities, in addition to the victim in Dongying. Shandong police detained a Vice Director of Jingmen’s Xiongxing Chemical Co on charges of “posing a threat to public safety.” The company has been ordered to suspend operations. “We normally deliver the toxic material ourselves if the amount is over a ton, but this time only a small amount was needed, so Yang called courier firms,” Huang Shenyong, a senior official with the chemical company, told police. Two courier firms in Hubei and Shanghai-based STO Express had refused to deliver the toxic material, but YTO accepted. One of the owners of the YTO franchise in Hubei’s Shayang county that received the tainted parcels is also being held by police and the franchise’s business license has been revoked. YTO’s franchise in Weifang was also ordered to pay a CNY28,000 fine for its delay in reporting the incident.
China Postal Express and Logistics cancels IPO
By : agxadmin
China Postal Express and Logistics Co (EMS), a Chinese state-owned express courier company, has withdrawn its application to go public amid strong competition from domestic rivals in the CNY198 billion express delivery market. EMS, cited “strategic adjustment” issues as the major reason behind the IPO pullout. The firm has decided to fine-tune its original parent-subsidiary structure to a more effective headquarters-branch management model to boost its competitiveness. Founded in 2010, EMS was the result of a merger by the China Post Group and provincial postal companies to tap into the country’s fast-growing express delivery market. The company said on its website that it has the widest coverage nationwide and the richest product portfolio. In August 2011, the company filed an application to be listed on the A-share market and won regulatory approval in May 2012, but its efforts to float shares were stopped by an IPO suspension that started at the end of 2012. The withdrawal of the IPO plans is an unwelcome hit to the courier, which has slipped behind rivals including SF Express (Group) Co and YTO Express (Logistics) Co, said Xu Yong, Analyst with China Express and Logistics Consulting, a logistics consultancy. EMS’ market share is being increasingly squeezed by private courier companies, which together account for about two-thirds of China’s express delivery market in terms of revenue, and more than three-fourths by number of parcels, according to data from the State Post Bureau released in June. The market value of China’s express delivery market is expected to reach CNY400 billion by 2020, Ma Junsheng, Director of the State Post Bureau, said in October.
- KURT VANDEPUTTE (UMICORE) APPOINTED CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF THE FLANDERS-CHINA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE (FCCC)
- Webinar: “Knowing Your Chinese Partner” – May 26, 2021, 10 am – 12 am
- EMA starts rolling review of CoronaVac, WHO approves Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use
- The Global Times warns not to politicize the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI)
- Hainan to become biggest duty-free market in the world