FedEx Express has officially opened its new South Pacific Regional Hub in Singapore to handleregional shipments and offer integrated air and ground connections to destinations in Asia Pacific
and beyond.The S$97 million facility (€61 million) at Singapore’s Changi Airport was officially openedyesterday (October 3) by Lui Tuck Yew, Singapore’s Minister of Transport.
FedEx said that the South Pacific Regional Hub is the first and only express transportationfacility in Singapore, the state’s only hub with on-site customs clearance by Singaporeanauthorities, and also the largest FedEx consolidated facility in Asia Pacific that houses air,ground and clearance operations under one roof.
Located within the airport’s Air Cargo Express (ACE) Hub, the 282,700 sq ft (26,265 sqm)integrated facility is a regional consolidation point for trans-shipments in and out of Australia,New Zealand, and Southeast Asia countries such as Laos and Cambodia. It has a fully-automatedhigh-speed 12-output sorting system that can sort up to 12,000 packages per hour and can scanpackage labels on five visible surfaces. The hub can accommodate over 280 delivery vehicles.
The FedEx South Pacific Regional Hub includes two new aircraft parking bays currently servicingFedEx’s 34 weekly flights in and out of Singapore, which the company claims are the highest numberof dedicated flights by any international express operator at the airport. The close proximity ofthe FedEx aircraft to the hub means that it can take less than four minutes for the FedEx containerto be delivered to the sort belt after being unloaded.
The company said the new facility reinforces its commitment to Asia Pacific where it already hasthe FedEx APAC Hub in Guangzhou, China, which is central to the FedEx AsiaOne network, and theFedEx North Pacific Regional Hub located in Osaka, Japan.
“The new South Pacific Regional Hub consolidates FedEx operational strength in the region and isdesigned to provide our customers with greater and more reliable access to regional and globaltrade opportunities. With the new facility, we aim to provide greater connectivity to the importanttrading lanes of the US and the EU for our customers,” said David L. Cunningham, president, AsiaPacific, FedEx Express.
Southeast Asia is becoming a more important and more integrated economic area, FedEx alsopointed out. The 10 countries comprising ASEAN account for 9% of the world’s population, with some600 million people, and have a combined GDP of over USD $1.8 trillion. In 2015, Southeast Asia isexpected to become one economic zone.
According to the European Commission, ASEAN as a whole represents the EU’s 3rd largest tradingpartner outside Europe (after the US and China) with more than €206 billion of trade in goods andservices in 2011. The EU is also ASEAN’s second largest trading partner after China, accounting foraround 11% of ASEAN trade.
