Big data changes life

  Following the gradual lifting of anti-pandemic measures in December 2022, China’s economy has begun to pick up. 70% of respondents expect their business to improve over the next three years, while 25% of respondents anticipate their business to improve significantly. Some 59% of respondents intend to increase their warehouse space in the next three years. 11% of respondents intend to increase their warehouse space by more than 30% over the next three years, well behind the 36% who stated their intention to do so in the previous survey conducted in 2021. 82% of respondents intend to expand their footprint in tier I city clusters, a substantial increase from the previous survey’s 55%. Tier I city clusters continue to play a key role as logistics hubs for consumption, manufacturing, and trade, and command a significant advantage over smaller cities. Respondents identified economic uncertainty (79% ), cost escalation (77%), and geopolitical and supply chain issues (52%) as the key challe

  China’s logistics sector grew over the past five years  (2017-2022) at a CAGR of 6.6% in real terms by total  value of social logistics goods, fuelled by strong industrial  production and expansion of the consumer market. Social  logistics goods refer to goods being transported to buyers  from suppliers for the first time, including agricultural and  industrial products, imported goods, recycled resources,  and goods produced by organisations and residents.  The logistics sector's growth exceeded the 5.2% rise in real  GDP in the same period, despite Covid-related lockdowns in  2020-2022 that dampened demand, disrupted operations  and delayed expansion. Fitch Ratings expects the sector’s  growth to normalise in 2023 as China ended its “zeroCovid” policy in December 2022, and hover in the midsingle-digit percentages in the medium term as China’s  slowing economic outlook will be partly offset by customers’  rising demand for fast and quality logistics services.

  Recent years have seen infrastructure logistics and warehouses play an increasinglyprominent role in support of accelerating urbanisation and city cluster developmentacross China. Greater Beijing, which consists of Beijing, Tianjin and Langfang, has beenno exception to this trend, with the city cluster witnessing the development of high-standard warehouses catering torefned and specialised logistics requirements derivedfrom growing domestic consumption and industrial upgrading.