Apart from delivering envelopes, UPS also services small packages, freight forwarding and contract logistics. We are very happy to attend the CIIE in November this year in Shanghai.

My name is Harld Peters, and I’m currently managing UPS as the president for China.

Before I came to China, obviously working for the company for 19 years, I’ve worked in many different locations and many different functions. And I’ve been in Shanghai for 14 months now.

My last function coming to China was the president for west Europe district. As a lot of the companies that I was managing in Europe or west Europe has strong ties to China. So I learn to know about Chinese business and Chinese customers.

We established our business in 1988 to a partnership with Sinotrans, and I’ll say our history is closely aligned with the history of China.

40 years ago, China opened up its markets and make it attractive for foreign companies to come and work here and to start trading with China. And we saw some evolutionary steps.

In 2001, China became a member of the World Trade Organization, as it started to be the manufacturing capital of the world.

Obviously, going abroad, and export, comes along with a lot of unknown factors. It’s a job to guide those Chinese companies, providing them advice and try to set them on the path for success. And the same goes for import.

Shopping online in China has a different meaning. China has by far the biggest global market for e-commence, and I think if you look at some of the percentages, I think 40% of the world market is in China.

It’s big and it’s growing. It grew from a few million a few years ago to 40 million daily shipments, which is by far the biggest number in the world.

What is changing is that, I think the market in China developed as a domestic market, but now you also see that there is also the desire to get the best products at the best price.

And that could be a Chinese product and could be a product from Germany or a product coming from the US or from Australia, which basically means importing into China.

China has been consistently growing, from both an export and import perspective.

When you look at the 2017 numbers, import has been grown at 15.9% versus the export growing at roughly 7.5%. So that means that import is growing at a double pace.

We expect that if there is business, there is also opportunity for us.

We will be doing workshops at the CIIE for tons of customers or companies that have interest.

I can sit in a tent and learn more about customs, trade processes, but even simple things like how you actually sell.

We’ll furthermore allow customers to do what we call a whiteboarding session. Help customers to map their supply chain from origin to destination.

I feel enthusiastic about the event that is going to take place in November. I’m also extremely enthusiastic about the Chinese government, actually sponsoring and supporting event like that.

I must commend the Chinese government for being very consistent in both the execution of the policies and creating an economic environment, where companies can benefit and grow.

Again, not only domestically, but certainly also internationally.

Obviously, life in China is different. One thing that people don’t realize is that technology has really advanced in China, and I think when you go to a tier-one city as Shanghai, it’s really easy.

The whole system to arrange for your life by your mobile phone, I think is state-of-the-art. And I think China is some years ahead of the rest of the world.

The world’s growth is gonna to be here. It’s not gonna be in the US. It’s not gonna be in Europe.

And a lot of the things that we thought would be happening other parts of the world are happening here today.

We are extremely optimistic about our future. I would say the Chinese market obviously is of extremely importance to UPS.

When you look a bit outside of China, most of the GDP growth will be in Asia-Pacific. The Belt and Road connects China truly to not only Europe but also to southeast Asia, to Africa, to Russia. And that allows I think companies to benefit from a lot of these infrastructure projects to get closer to the market.