Chengdu East Railway Station. [Photo / China Daily]

Apart from the impressive infrastructure it has lined up to attract global majors, Chengdu also provides multinational companies with an ideal opportunity to trim overall costs, and a footprint to the vastly untapped markets of western China.

Multinationals can cash in on such factors as talented workforce and an open investment environment. But the main attraction for most logistics companies is the excellent transport links the city has with other major destinations in China.

Chengdu is the fourth major air hub in China, with seven direct international flight connections and 12 code-sharing global links. By 2015, there will be at least 30 direct passenger and freight flights from Chengdu to major cities in the world.

Another factor that has helped industrialization is the "cluster approach", especially for shared service centers.

Major global companies like Accenture, DHL, Lafarge and Amazon rub shoulders with domestic companies like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd to set up a robust chain of delivery and service centers.

Wang Yuehua, director of the Damco Customer Service Center in Chengdu, said the site contributes about 80 percent of the group's logistics business in China.

"We completed the shift of our customer-service function from coastal cities to Chengdu in June. Though it was a very complicated migration process, by having the centralized customer center in Chengdu, we have gained a strategic advantage over our peers," she said.

Citing Nike Inc, one of Damco's major clients in China, she said the US company often reached out to Damco from its bases in eastern coastal cities of China to ship products to Europe, but had to speak to more than 10 Damco employees to complete the same process in different regions of China.

But after the centralization, customers need to make just one phone call, she said.

Making inroads into the domestic market is another major mission for the Chengdu branch, as many of Maersk's clients are clinching business deals in central and western China.

"There is a trend that our clients, such as Hewlett-Packard, are moving their manufacturing programs further inland or to Southeast Asia, which requires us to enhance the knowledge and business ties in the domestic market," Wang said.

The Chengdu site will also look to provide more value-added services, such as information and supply-chain management solutions, along with transportation services in China.

"Many of our international clients are impressed after a tour of our new facilities and are more than eager to work with us," Wang said.

Contact the writers at zhaoyanrong@chinadaily.com.cn and liyu@chinadaily.com.cn

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