United Parcel Service Inc. will start flights from Europe to Chengdu, a major economic and logistics hub with 13 million people in southwestern China.
The flight will begin in Cologne, Germany, and travel through Warsaw, Poland, before landing in Chengdu. It will terminate in Shanghai, where UPS has its Asia hub.
The shift in manufacturing from China’s developed coast to its lower-cost hinterlands is fueling Chengdu’s rise and UPS’s optimism about the city. The Chinese government is encouraging this shift to create jobs in less-developed areas.
“China’s ‘Go West’ program is making it very attractive for companies to move production facilities to inland cities like Chengdu and we believe the area is poisec for accelerated growth in express shipping,” said UPS International President Dan Brutto.
Chengdu’s foreign trade totaled $32.78 billion in 2010. The Chinese national government in December declared the city an export processing zone, according to a UPS news release.
UPS reaches 330 cities in China and operates 200 flights in and out of China per week.
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