{"id":15158,"date":"2025-01-10T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-10T06:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focus.cbbc.org\/?p=15158"},"modified":"2025-04-23T08:52:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T08:52:57","slug":"are-chinese-logistics-companies-good-enough-for-your-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focus.cbbc.org\/are-chinese-logistics-companies-good-enough-for-your-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Chinese logistics companies good enough for your business?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Moving goods around has been one of the great challenges for domestic and foreign business in China since the beginning of the country’s reform and opening up in 1979. Getting your product inland, down to consumers in lower tiers, into the countryside, to the far west or the south has been a process that had to begin virtually from scratch. Refrigerated trucks, air and rail freight, and just-in-time delivery are challenges for everyone from milk producers to steel companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While great strides have been made in recent years, it seems there\u2019s still a long way to go, and China\u2019s central government is not all that impressed with the sector. So argue Paul G. Clifford and Christopher Logan in their new book China Logistics: From Laggard to Innovator<\/em> (Routledge). So Paul French sat down with Paul Clifford to chat logistics \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n

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In 2022, the Chinese government criticised the nation\u2019s logistics industry as \u2018large but not strong\u2019 (da er buqiang<\/em>). But China\u2019s logistics sector, from haulage to refrigeration, shipping and warehousing, has obviously made great strides since the 80s and 90s \u2013 so where are the main weaknesses still to be found?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Since the economic reforms began in the 1980s, China\u2019s logistics have made enormous progress, but still struggle to meet the needs of industry and commerce. The key issues remain the fragmentation of the sector (logistics firms without scale), the slow pace of logistics outsourcing to 3PLs (third-party logistics), cut-throat competition resulting in poor service quality and low profitability, the high asset intensity of logistics firms, and weaknesses in key areas such as multi-modal (truck-to-train) and chilled-chain logistics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n