China Shipping Container Lines is likely to buy a port developer from its state-owned parent for RMB2.6 billion ($379 million), according to the China Securities Journal.

Its parent, China Shipping (Group) Company, was auctioning all of its stake in the port developer on the Shanghai United Assets and Equity Exchange, and the newspaper quoted analysts as saying China Shipping Container Lines was likely to win the bid.

The Shanghai-based port developer, China Shipping Terminal Development Co — the one that is being bought — is engaged in port investment and development, logistics, warehouse stocking and transportation.

China Shipping Container Lines had said it planned to use funds raised from its initial public offering to buy the port developer from its parent.
Source: CargoNews Asia

The figures are simple and encouraging:

2007 revenues increased 51.8% to $85.9 million.
2007 net income increased 41.7% to $13.5 million.

Beijing Logistic, one of China’s largest third-party logistics providers, specializing in books and magazines, agricultural products and Chinese traditional medicine storage and shipping (a neat mix), announced operating results for year-end 2007 which showed it is doing very nicely.

The major contribution of this growth was the expansion of the books logistics business.

In 2007, revenues from books and magazines logistics management increased 66.8% from 2006, to approximately $51.9 million. No analyst would have forecast this. No book publisher would have expected it.

Ms. Zhang Yu, Chief Executive Officer of Beijing Logistic, said, ‘The growth was due to our continued focus on expanding warehouse service offerings as a third party logistics trustee company to the publishing Industry. We built new distribution centers in large cities to organize and manage inventory for many publishers, and as a result, we earned profit not just from book and magazine shipping, but also from the management service in the warehouse. We diversified services, and improved efficiency in order to satisfy the requirement of different clients, and the client base in the publishing business segment has increased.’

Ms. Zhang Yu said, ‘2007 was a notable year for Beijing Logistic, we were striving to become the largest book logistics company in China, the highest ranked third-party logistics company, and the most renowned logistics company.’

We do not know if the book illustrated is in the Beijing Logistic warehouse. It damn well should be.
Source: BusinessWire

Bosch Group has started construction of a $6.31 million logistic center in Changsha, the capital city of Hunan Province, to optimize its logistics efficiency in central China.

The new center is built on a 10,000-square-meter site with an expanded automotive logistic network. When it is completed towards the end of this year, it will coordinate all automotive products to and from the Changsha site, including on-time delivery of production materials.

Bosch (which is the company that invented the spark plug) started operations in Changsha in January, 2005, with a total investment of $89 million up to 2008. Bosch Changsha is the main production facility for electrical drivers, starters and alternators for Bosch, arguably the world’s leading car part maker, in China.

The site offers a full range of mechatronic components and body applications systems for the entire automotive industry in China including motors for ABS and engine cooling. (If, like me, you are puzzled by this new word mechtronics the definition given by Wikipedia is: Mechatronics is the combination of mechanical engineering, electronic engineering and software engineering. The purpose of this interdisciplinary engineering field is the study of automata from an engineering perspective and serves the purposes of controlling advanced hybrid systems. The word itself is a portmanteau of ‘Mechanics’ and ‘Electronics’.)

My own view entirely. Could not have put it better myself. It was right on the tip of my tongue.
Source: China Daily

Before we get lost in the total alphabet soup which so bedevils Supply Chain Managment it is good to know that VMI, which concerns us here, is Vendor Managed Inventory , Warehouse Management Systems is WMS, Distribution Requirements Planning is DRP, Electronic Funds Transfer is EFT, Enterprise Resource Planning is ERP, Just-in-Time is JIT, Material Requirements Planning is MRP, POS is Point-of-Sale, Total Cost of Ownership is TCO, Vendor Managed Inventory is VMI and Warehouse Management Systems is WMS.

There are many, many others but these are the ones likely to appear in your term paper.
Knight Electronics provides OEM (original equioment manufacture) customers on-the-ground presence in China. So, in effect, they become the company in China.

Knight Electronics has now opened a vendor-managed inventory warehouse in China.
Bob Knight, president of Knight Electronics, said, ‘Our VMI warehouse provides our OEM customers with a presence on-the-ground in Asia, so they don’t have to manage the hassles of shipping, inspections, and delivery times from the United States or Europe to Asia

‘Our customers’ products can be manufactured in China and shipped directly to their Asian customers, reducing inventory, shipping and inspection costs while increasing profit margins.’

In other words the company provides all the services a large company establishes itself on the ground for a large amount of money. For OEMs the VMI warehouse will help reduce large capital outlays for large quantity shipments, provide a point for Asian site inspection, reduce travel time and expenses, solve communication problems, remove a risk associated with quality issues, and solve the logistics problems of shipping, payments and return of defective products. Which is what we said earlier.
Source: EMS Now

Consumer electronics giant Best Buy has rented a distribution center in Shanghai. Designed by logistics provider, Kuehne + Nagel, the 6,000-square-meter facility lies in Minhang district, in the city’s southwest. Kuehne + Nagel will manage the warehouse and also supply its distribution services in China.

Best Buy opened its first retail store in China at the beginning of 2007.

The photo is taken from the China Herald and shows the store in the busy shopping district of Xujiahui in central Shanghai.
Source: PR Kuehne + Nagel, Best Buy

First came a preliminary suggestion that it would happen. Then came the final news. YRC Worldwide (formally Yellow Roadway which you may think a more memorable name) will acquire 65% of Shanghai Jiayu Logistics for between US$29.5 million and US$43 million, depending on Jiayu’s final 2007 figures.

The deal will not be totally complete until 2010 when YRC plans to purchase the remaining 35% interest in for around US$32 million.

Shanghai Jiayu Logistics is one of the largest providers of LTL ground transportation services in China, with a network of more than 3,000 vehicles serving more than 30,000 customers.

(For those wondering what LTL stands for it is a shipment that is ‘less than a truckload’. Cargoes from different sources are usually consolidated to save costs.)

YRC Worldwide chairman, president and CEO Bill Zollars, seen here, said, ‘China continues to be one of the fastest growing markets for our customers and an important part of YRC Worldwide’s overall strategy. The acquisition of Jiayu allows us to provide reliable ground transportation and is the next step in building a comprehensive portfolio of logistics services for our customers in China.’

Jiayu’s management will remain with the company.
Source: Eye for Transport

In Tianjin Wal-Mart has expanded its distribution center to handle the growing demand of the world’s leading retailer’s business in the Chinese market.

The expanded center in Tianjin’s Beichen district can handle 330,000 packages of goods. Gao Jian, a logistics and distribution officer at Wal-Mart, said that is four times the capacity of the original one.

The center is the second for Wal-Mart on the Chinese mainland. The other is in the southern coastal city of Shenzhen. The center in Tianjin is not brand new. The original was built in 2003 and was then expanded to its new size.

Wal-Mart has opened 91 stores on the Chinese mainland since its entry into China in 1996.
Source: China View

U.S. AMB Property, a major global owner and developer of warehouses and distribution centres, has launched an industrial real estate project in eastern China as part of its planned expansion.

AMB Beilun Port Distribution Center is located in the Ningbo Economic and Technological Development Zone. The 37,000-sq-meter distribution center project has just started in the eastern port city of Ningbo, near Shanghai and will be completed by mid-2008.

Hamid Moghadam, AMB’s chairman and chief executive, said, ‘China represents an important part of AMB’s expanding global platform. The center paves the way for future development of port distribution property supporting China’s booming seaport trade.’

He said China is on track to overtake Japan as AMB’s largest market in Asia in three years in terms of development area and in 5 to 7 years in terms of portfolio value.

Other AMB properties in China include a 31,800-sq-meter distribution center in Shanghai and a 96,700-sq-meter distribution center, which has been leased to global express delivery and logistics provider DHL.

Some indications of how sophisticated the logistics business in China is becoming:

Hongxun Logistics, a third party logistics (3PL) provider based in Beijing, had just selected HighJump to implement a WMS, a warehouse management system. Hongxun manages more than 30 warehouses in China, offering logistics services to mobile communications manufacturers in China, including some of the best-known names in the cell phone business. Simon Sun, Hongxun’s logistics manager said Hongxun is implementing the WMS along with wireless communications and RF-based bar code scanning to capture and communicate tracking and tracing information, to manage warehouse operations, and to manage the transfer of goods between warehouses. The system will be up and running in 2008.
National Retail Systems along with a Chinese partner is launching SinoNRS to build and operate highly-automated western-style distribution centers to do value-added services and direct-to-store delivery from China to retail stores in the United States.
In August Catalyst said that it planned to market WMS systems in China after noticing high volumes of Chinese traffic on its website. A few weeks later, Catalyst was acquired by CDC Software, a subsidiary of CDC Corporation, a Chinese-owned provider of enterprise software solutions.

Source: Modern Materials Handling

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, seen in our illustration, said in Dalian that the aim is to make Dalian not only a major harbor along China’s northeast coast but also a shipping center of Northeast Asia.

He said that all projects under construction should be carefully designed and planned and lead the way in the region. The premier urged the city to take a scientific approach to development and balance the economic development with environmental protection to turn Dalian into a well-developed, harmonious and ecologically beautiful city.

He had just attended the Summer Davos meeting in Dalian and said, ‘Good environment is one of the reasons why Summer Davos was held here. Some 1,000 foreign participants could not only visit local enterprises but also enjoy the blue sky with white clouds and experience Dalian’s efforts in energy-saving and sustainable development.’

While in Dalian, the premier visited Datyaowan bonded zone and the new harbor under construction.
Source: China Daily