Greencarrier opens in Shenzhen
The fast-growing logistics specialist, Greencarrier, has opened its third office in China. As Greencarrier Asia, it operates out of Hong Kong and Shanghai and has now added Shenzhen as a branch office to Shanghai. In total, it now has 30 staff in Greater China.
Greencarrier provides all of the services once provided by traditional freight forwarders, including transportation by sea, air and land. From Asia, its special focus is to service customers in the trade between China and the Nordic and Baltic countries.
Niklas Olsson, Managing Director and CEO of Greencarrier International, attributes the company’s success in part to the level of personal service it can provide:
“Some years ago, many forwarders became small cogs in large machines as the huge global forwarders bought up many of their competitors. In our opinion, this consolidation left many shippers feeling isolated. Personal service had disappeared, it seemed forever. But what really happened was that this phenomenon left niches for smaller, resilient players to exploit.
“In our home region, Scandinavia, we were faced with so many opportunities. We decided to concentrate on Asia not because China was becoming fashionable but because this region was extremely well known to us. Our parent, the Björk Eklund Group, has been for many years agents for some of the largest air and sea freight carriers in the North Europe – Asia trades. We immediately set about expanding our operations in Scandinavia and the Baltic; we knew that many Asian shippers saw this area as one market.“
Greencarrier now has subsidiaries in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Ukraine in addition to the three offices in Greater China.
Greencarrier is now intent on building its presence in China, says Mr Olsson:
“Just as Asian shippers regard Scandinavia and the Baltic as one market, so we in the West view China similarly. But China speaks several languages, has a land area of 9.6 million km2 and as Bloomberg Businessweek predicted back in 2008, by 2025, at least 220 Chinese cities are likely to have more than 1 million people and eight will have more than 10 million. You can’t service a market like that with just a handful of offices.”
Greencarrier provides all of the services once provided by traditional freight forwarders, including transportation by sea, air and land. From Asia, its special focus is to service customers in the trade between China and the Nordic and Baltic countries.
Niklas Olsson, Managing Director and CEO of Greencarrier International, attributes the company’s success in part to the level of personal service it can provide:
“Some years ago, many forwarders became small cogs in large machines as the huge global forwarders bought up many of their competitors. In our opinion, this consolidation left many shippers feeling isolated. Personal service had disappeared, it seemed forever. But what really happened was that this phenomenon left niches for smaller, resilient players to exploit.
“In our home region, Scandinavia, we were faced with so many opportunities. We decided to concentrate on Asia not because China was becoming fashionable but because this region was extremely well known to us. Our parent, the Björk Eklund Group, has been for many years agents for some of the largest air and sea freight carriers in the North Europe – Asia trades. We immediately set about expanding our operations in Scandinavia and the Baltic; we knew that many Asian shippers saw this area as one market.“
Greencarrier now has subsidiaries in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Ukraine in addition to the three offices in Greater China.
Greencarrier is now intent on building its presence in China, says Mr Olsson:
“Just as Asian shippers regard Scandinavia and the Baltic as one market, so we in the West view China similarly. But China speaks several languages, has a land area of 9.6 million km2 and as Bloomberg Businessweek predicted back in 2008, by 2025, at least 220 Chinese cities are likely to have more than 1 million people and eight will have more than 10 million. You can’t service a market like that with just a handful of offices.”