FedEx will build a new $100 million freight hub at Shanghai's Pudong International Airport, following rivals DHL and UPS, to tap the booming local cargo market.
The new 134,000-square-meter international express and cargo hub to be built at the airport by 2017 will be capable of handling 36,000 parcels and documents per hour, FedEx said yesterday.
The new facility's annual sorting capacity may reach more than 90 million items, meeting the demand in the next 20 years. Shanghai aims to be the world's top air cargo hub by 2015, with a throughput of more than more than 5 million tons.
Major domestic airlines have based 80 percent of their freight capacities at the Pudong airport, which now ranks No. 3 by cargo turnover, after Hong Kong and Memphis in the U.S.
Li Derun, president of the Shanghai Airport Authority said the facility will further raise the airport's handling capacity and help build it into a global cargo hub.
Freight handled by DHL, FedEx and UPS accounts for 10 percent of Pudong airport's total cargo volume while the value makes up more than 40 percent of the total, Li said. A slower global economic recovery saw a 6 percent fall in cargo handled at the city's two airports in the first nine months of this year.
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