A.P. Moller-Maersk Group, the world’s top logistics company, will locate its global service center in Tianfu Software Park (seen in our illustration) in Chengdu, Sichuan Province.Maersk will also set up a logistics processing branch and documents processing center in the software park. The company’s new facility will have total office area of around 15,000 sq.m.
Chengdu, a hub in southwestern China, has gradually formed a cluster of shared service centers. Accenture global delivery center, DHL Shared Services Center, Lafarge back-office services center, Amazon order fulfillment center, and domestic players like Alibaba and Tencent, have set up companies there.
During the first half of 2009, Accenture, DHL, JPMorgan as well as Volkswagen opened their offices in Chengdu, and 134 "Fortune 500"-listed companies now have a presence.
Shao Wei, a managing director of Maersk, said that Maersk is considering further increased investments in Chengdu as part of efforts to expand business in the western Chinese market.
Fresh Plaza reports that Chengdu Tianfu Software Park, funded by the Chengdu Hi-tech Zone Management Committee, has a total planned construction area of 1.3 million square meters. So far, it has 90 companies including IBM, Accenture, SAP, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia-Siemens, Singtel, DHL, Wipro and Symantec and now employs over 12,000 people.