Global freight and logistics services Logwin said it is seeing growth in intra-Asia trade, the world’s largest by volume, as China-based manufacturers increasingly source raw materials, components, and finished products from Asia-Pacific.
It particularly noted strong growth in 2012 on the Eastern China-Vietnam trade lane as a broad range of industries, including those in IT hardware, computers, furniture, and garments, are now moving raw materials and components through Eastern China to Vietnam for assembly.
“It has become one of the larger trade lanes in intra-Asia for Logwin,” said Tomas Sonntag, managing director for Far East Asia of the company’s Air + Ocean unit.
In addition, Sonntag observed the growing demand from industries and consumers in Eastern China for products from Vietnam.
“This is even more remarkable when you consider that four years ago volumes on this same trade lane were negligible. Manufacturers now actively look at leveraging the lower land and labor costs in Vietnam while maintaining their core operations in the Shanghai area,” he added.
He said the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA)—which came into effect in 2010 and links China with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations—will further boost trade of semi-finished goods and raw materials around the region.
ACFTA is the largest free trade area in population and the third largest in trade volume after the European Economic Area and the North American Free Trade Area.
Photo: Hector Garcia
