DHL Express officially announced that it will invest around €150 million in France over the next four years, including an investment of €128 million in new hubs at Paris and Lyon airports, confirming the country’s importance in the company’s European development.
Last week, DHL Express CEO Ken Allen and DHL Express France CEO Michel Akavi announced the ambitious investment plan during their participation at the French ‘strategic attractiveness council’ at the Elysée palace, which was headed by President François Hollande and attended by senior ministers.
“We shared our views on the assets of France, the areas for improvement, the issues and challenges related to the choice of France to strengthen our activities,” Allen said.
As already reported by French media last week, DHL Express plans to invest €85 million into its new automated mega hub at Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris with an area of 20,000 sqm which quadruples the area of its existing 5,000 sqm depot near the airport. This represents the largest investment by DHL Express in France. The facility is due to open in 2019/2020.
DHL’s second major investment of €43 million concerns a new sorting centre at the Saint-Exupéry Airport in Lyon. The 12,000 sqm facility will be built at the same time as the Paris facility, DHL Express France said.
In 2014 and 2015, DHL Express already invested €30 million into its French network: €13 million in its new headquarters in Bourget near Paris and €17 million in the modernisation of its 14 operational sites.
This year, the company is continuing to restructure its network with an investment of €18 million into the relocation or modernisation of its sites in response to 20% growth in shipping volumes in 2015, compared to 2014. Thus, €8 million were already invested in January 2016 into the expansion of DHL’s hub at the airport of Marseille with the warehouse area more than doubling.
Additionally, €10 million will be invested in 2016 to modernise six other sites in France including the relocation of the depot in Montpellier to Baillargues, with an area that is five times bigger than the previous facility, and the modernisation of the depot in Nice.
Akavi commented: “This year, we celebrate our 40 years of presence in France, where we have almost 2,000 employees at 45 sites spread all over the country. France has many assets to offer and our investment programme proves that DHL is convinced of its high potential.”
“With these investment projects, DHL Express will further strengthen its ties with France which is very well located geographically and has quality transport and logistics infrastructure, qualified staff, generates high productivity compared to other European countries and offers recognised expertise and creativity: ‘the French Touch’ and ‘Made in France’ are famous in the whole world,” he added.
