DHL Global Forwarding, an international provider of air, sea and road freight services, recently announced a road freight service along the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge that connects the West Pearl River Delta manufacturing zones in mainland China with Hong Kong’s core air and ocean freight hubs.
The 24/7 route links Zhuhai — Guangdong province’s manufacturing hub — with Hong Kong in just two hours, compared with the previous eight-hour journey via Humen Bridge. The new service operates from Hong Kong International Airport and its surrounding ports to allow for more frequent flights and sailings, thereby supporting global exports of technological equipment, garments and electronics components from China to the rest of the world.
“The previous 200km route is now reduced to 80km, allowing for greater flexibility in pick-ups and more stable transit times to support just-in-time manufacturing in the Delta,” said Steve Huang, chief executive, DHL Global Forwarding China. “Our customers will benefit from a more efficient, reliable and cost-saving route for the import and export of goods, particularly for finished or semi-finished products made out of materials sourced from all over the world.”
Offering full-truckload and less-than-truckload shipments, the solution incorporates warehousing services to consolidate worldwide import of raw materials to a single point, as well as distribute exports of finished goods from single to multiple points. Doing so reduces the number of individual transactions, customs fees, costs and overall delivery time of both inbound and outbound cargoes for Chinese manufacturers.
Open to the public since October 2018, the 55km HKZMB undersea bridge tunnel system is the longest sea and fixed crossing in the world. Previously, land transport over the Pearl River Delta was only possible via a detour along the Humen Bridge, with water transportation proving to be time-consuming and vulnerable to weather conditions.
Together with ongoing feeder connectivity, the DHL HKZMB Road Freight Solution will cater to the 11 industrial heavyweight cities along the Greater Bay Area, home to over 70m people and an economy worth over US$1.5trn. The Zhuhai Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone, one of the main areas serviced by the route has been fostering tech growth, with high-tech manufacturing contributing over US$3.77billion — nearly 28% — of the city of Zhuhai’s GDP in 2018.
“This latest addition will be able to meet the economic demands and adapt to commercial needs on both sides of the eastern and western bank of the Pearl River,” said Huang. “Our new service, which ties directly into our larger multimodal network tracing the Belt and Road, will help make seamless freight connectivity between Asia and the rest of the world a reality. This would in turn bring a new degree of flexibility to our customers’ manufacturing and export strategies amidst even the most volatile market conditions.”
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