DHL Global Forwarding has nearly doubled its warehouse space at its airfreight facility in Shanghai to 49,905 square feet, and it has added a 17,222 square-foot cold-storage facility to serve the life sciences and healthcare sectors, to the tune of US$18 million for the entire project.
The additions were built on the site of the existing DHL facility, which is within the No. 1 customs supervised bonded zone. DHL Global Forwarding is the only international freight forwarder at Shanghai with its own temperature-controlled storage facility. DHL uses a temperature-controlled system called Thermonet, which monitors the ambient temperature of cold-chain cargo throughout the process. Customers can track their cargo from start to finish, paying a predetermined rate for the service.
A new, four-story office building will accommodate almost 1,000 staff and will be home to DHL Shanghai in airfreight operations as well as customer service.
“The demand for cold-chain services is increasing, and we now have 20 times more capacity than we did,” said Steve Huang, CEO, DHL Global Forwarding, China.