[photopress:yangtze_river_shipping.JPG,full,alignright]Research and Markets in its China Third Party Logistics Market Report, 2006 states that China’s external logistics reached a total value of RMB48 trillion in 2005, 25.2% more than the previous year.
Industrial product logistics developed fastest whereas the agricultural product logistics increased slowest, and its proportion was rather small.
The total expense of China’s external logistics is rising and is up in the first half of 2006 from the same period last year. This mainly because of the sharp rise in the price of energy which led to a commensurate rise in transportation fees.
However, the ratio of the total expense of external logistics to GDP continued to drop from 18.6% in 2005 to 18.4% in the first half of 2006, down by 0.2%. This is a a very small drop and the figure is still far, far higher than other developed countries where single digits are the norm.
More and more global logistics corporations began to establish bases or distribution centers in Asia Pacific, such as UPS, FedEx, DHL, TNT, Exel, APL, BAX, Maersk, and SchenKer.
Meanwhile, due to the rising price of petroleum and the increasing investment in facility and technology, the operation cost of logistics enterprises will increase dramatically.
Source: Digital50