Global logistics leader Maersk inaugurated its largest flagship warehouse in Shanghai on Thursday, demonstrating its strong confidence in China's pivotal role in advancing the global green transition and shaping the future of logistics.
The facility, located in the Yangshan Special Comprehensive Bonded Zone of the Lingang Special Area, is built with an investment of more than one billion yuan (about 140 million U.S. dollars). Covering 113,000 square meters with 147,000 square meters of storage space, it is Maersk's biggest warehousing project in China and one of its largest worldwide.
"With the special zone that we have here in Lingang near Yangshan, the largest port in the world, we are at a very, very globally strategic place for the global supply chain. And for us to make this investment and support customers that both import, export goods, need to re-export, need to invest into both wholesale and e-commerce, the ability that we had in here to develop a state-of-the-art infrastructure to support all of these needs in one facility was quite a unique opportunity for us," said Vincent Clerc, the company's CEO.
Clerc stressed China's importance in green energy.
"We're seeing a really important role that China is taking on developing green energy, green supply. For us, we have invested a lot in green methanol ships, and we're going to need to rely on the supply of methanol from our partners in China, Goldwind and Longi and so on, to continue to have the fuel that we need to power the green transition," said Clerc.
The facility combines bonded and non-bonded storage, enabling agile inventory management, according to Clerc.
"When it comes to logistics, there is a lot of trade wars and uncertainty. That's why customers need to be very agile in how they manage their flows of goods. And this facility is fantastic, because it actually enables them to cope with any types of disruptions, gives them the flexibility that they otherwise wouldn't have," said Clerc.
Clerc also said the facility offers resilience and flexibility to its customers at a time of trade tensions and disruptions.
"So a lot of the theme that we have today when we talk to customers is resilience, as you say. And the resilience means flexibility, means being able to react very quickly to the disruptions and the changes that that we're seeing. By being able to cope and having both bonded and unbonded warehouse here, customers can make inventory choices in a very agile manner. They can re-exports goods. They can distinct it to their local production. They can actually both flow imports and exports within the same facility and make inventory decisions on the fly. This very high-level of flexibility is really tailor made for the world of today," said Clerc.
Maersk opens largest flagship warehouse in Shanghai, showing strong confidence in China
