DHL Global Forwarding introduced a second multimodal overland service connecting Asia and
Europe. A train will depart every Friday from Chengdu to Europe, passing through western China and Kazakhstan to DHL’s intermodal hub in Malaszewicze, Poland. The new weekly service comes as an addition to DHL’s daily service, which departs from Shanghai and runs along the trans-Siberian North Corridor. It will reduce the overall Asia-Europe transport time by up to eight days, further cutting costs and CO2 emissions.

China’s express delivery market has grown five-fold in the past five years, according to the State Post Bureau. The number of units delivered in April surged by 64.1% compared to last year, with revenue reaching CNY10.9 billion, an increase of 41%. The first quarter of this year saw 1.71 billion units of post delivered, up 64.3% year-on-year. About 5.7 billion units were delivered through couriers in 2012, with a market value of CNY106 billion. Private companies claimed three-fourths of the market share and 61.9% in terms of sales. Around 800,000 couriers were employed.

International delivery companies are taking the lead in cutting roadside emissions in Hong Kong and hope their local counterparts will follow suit. FedEx Express commissioned 10 electric vehicles in Hong Kong in March, the company’s first zero-emission fleet in Asia as it attempts to reduce fuel consumption by 4% in the city. The 10 electric vehicles have made the 254-strong delivery truck fleet greener. Vehicles are the biggest source of air pollution in the city, with 67% of carbon monoxide coming from road transport and 19% of respirable suspended particulates emitted by cars, according to the Environmental Protection Department. “The 10 Ford Transit vans, made by Smith Electric Vehicles, will be deployed in Chai Wan, Kennedy Town, Tsuen Wan and Sha Tin,” said Anthony Leung, FedEx Express’s Managing Director for Hong Kong and Macao. FedEx has a fleet of 250 electric cars and 360 hybrid cars globally, which play a key role in pursuing its goal of saving more than 75 million liters of fuel every year. The company has just tightened its 2020 fuel consumption target to a 30% cut from what it used in 2005. UPS, which introduced its first hybrid-electric vehicle in Hong Kong in 2011, said it is going to add more hybrid vans later this year. Its hybrid car is 35% more fuel efficient than a traditional car. DHL Express introduced six bicycles last month that are capable of charging the hand-held mobile scanners used by DHL couriers, and it commissioned one hybrid truck in Hong Kong in 2011. Its fuel consumption is 24% lower than a normal truck. The company said it is in the process of evaluating other electric vehicles.

Shanghai YTO Express has apologized to a local customer after a delivery man threatened to spread her personal information on the internet if she complained. The customer, surnamed Fu, called after a courier was late in picking up a package, asking him to come right away because it was urgent. The delivery man not only refused but also threatened her by saying “if you dare to lodge a complaint against me, I will publicize all your personal information on the internet,” according to Fu. YTO has punished the man with a salary cut and started new training for all its staff to prevent similar incidents. Leaks of private information have become one of the major problems of the courier industry in China, said Li Bin, Director of the Customer Complaints Reception Center of the State Post Bureau. The center received 192,000 complaints in 2012, and 27% were about company couriers, including some about information leaks, Li said. An industry has grown up around such leaks. On the Dan114 website,  customers’ courier numbers from major firms including YTO, Yunda and ZTO are being sold at CNY0.4 to CNY1 each. Merchants can create fake favorable reviews of their services using such information. Courier service managers can be fined CNY5,000 to CNY10,000 if couriers are found collecting or selling personal information of customers, according to the Courier Industry Regulation issued by the Ministry of Transport that took effect this month. There are now more than 800,000 delivery workers nationwide and the number has been increasing by about 200,000 annually. Some 30 million parcels are delivered across China every day.

Quanfeng Express, a Chinese courier that started operations in July 2011, has attracted investment interest from private equity companies. The funding is likely to pave the way for the first initial public offering (IPO) in the industry, analysts say. Leading Capital Fortune, Beijing Pengkang Investment Co and Phoenix Capital Asset Management have announced they will inject CNY200 million into the courier to bolster its nationwide expansion, said the company’s President Chen Jiahai. Quanfeng’s existing shareholders maintain the controlling right in the company, and investors will only intervene in financial issues, not in daily operations, company Spokesman Dai Changzheng said. The company aims to turn itself into a mid-to-high-end express delivery firm, following in the footsteps of SF Express (Group) Co, which charges double for same-city deliveries compared with local rivals, Dai said. Aided by the funding, the company also plans to seek a listing in three to five years, according to Dai. He added that Quanfeng targets small parcels weighing less than 5 kg, and focuses on cross-town businesses in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Greater supervision of the industry has been called for after postal authorities canceled the licenses of 116 couriers in the past year for allegedly losing mail and poor sorting. “We want to guarantee customers speed, safety and quality of services, so that they are willing to pay more for our services,” Dai said. China’s express delivery sector was worth CNY48.9 billion in the first half of 2012, according to China Express and Logistics Consulting. Compared with interregional and international businesses, cross-town delivery enjoyed the fastest year-on-year growth of 54.5% in the first quarter of 2012, with revenue reaching CNY2.02 billion, according to China Venture Group, as reported by the China Daily.