According to official figures released by China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s logistics market grew by 15.4% in 2008 to reach CNY2 trillion (US$290bn). Although dwarfing growth in many other countries, the rate slowed by 4.5 percentage points from the previous year. The NRDC stated that the lower growth in 2008 was due to severe weather conditions at the beginning of the year, the huge earthquake which occurred in part of the country in May and, of course, the fallout from the global economic slowdown. The economic downturn, with a consequent weakening of international demand for Chinese exports, has had a major impact on many of that country’s logistics companies, the majority of which are micro ‘mom-and-pop’ type enterprises. However, larger international logistics companies mainly based at the major ports and airports have also been heavily affected by year-to-year volume falls of 20% or more.
