DHL Global Forwarding Chief Financial Officer (South Asian Region) Melvin Chang has disclosed that DHL has planned to invest $9 million to establish a strong logistic and warehousing network in Pakistan. Chang was talking to Pakistan Today in an exclusive interview. He pointed out that with this investment DHL would establish warehousing facilities, acquire modern equipment and upgrade transport and distribution infrastructure in the next couple of years. He underlined that DHL believed in better services and for that purpose it was constantly upgrading its infrastructure.
It had recently bought a fleet of trucks to enhance its logistic capabilities. He said that DHL was operating in Pakistan for many years with a strong customer base. He pointed out that the demand for warehousing facilities was increasing in Pakistan, which was exciting and would attract investment in this sector. Chang said that though DHL sector specialists were working and providing services to various sector, but pharmaceutical industry was the biggest client. He underscored that client expectations were increasing rapidly, owing to innovations and better services in the logistic sector.
DHL was expecting huge demand in coming years as Pakistan had a huge domestic market and it would tap this potential with better infrastructure development, he added. Speaking about the investment potential, he said that the country had good investment potential, especially in the energy sector. He disclosed that apart from logistic business DHL had strong expertise in energy related products, including wind turbines and special equipments for power generation. This could be another area of future investment in Pakistan, he indicated. He stressed that Pakistan could overcome its energy crisis by adopting alternate ways of power generation.
Wind turbines and solar energy could be among the best options available for Pakistan owing to know geographical reasons. Responding to a question, Chang said that for the success of every business strong and cordial relations are required among stakeholders including the government and employees. DHL had maintained good equation with its team and the government agencies, which helped it to expand its business in Pakistan. He pointed out that being market leader client expectations from DHL were very high and it always tried to come up to their expectations.
DHL always tried to help its clients, even it did not hesitate to book a charter plane to meet the tight schedules. However, being a large company in both in terms of employees and global network, DHL had to face new challenges to develop new markets, he added. He said that DHL was actively looking towards the logistic need of its clients and offered them long term sustainable solutions. In addition, he indicated that in any catastrophic situation DHL, being a responsible organisation, lower its fare to facilitate its customer.
He pointed out that in cooperation with United Nations, DHL global network of Disaster Response Team (DRT) avoids bottlenecks and secures timely onwards transportation of aid at airports by assisting in the handling and warehousing of relief goods free of charge. While providing overview of its company he said that DHL is listed with German stock exchange, and its business is supported in many categories that include supply chain, global forwarding, courier and global mail. He said that DHL was number one in ocean freight service that was invigorated with its global strong network. To a question he said that considering it a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) DHL offices worldwide had donated some $300,000 to Pakistan during the last year flooding.
Through GoGreen campaign DHL was the first global logistics company to set itself a quantified CO2 efficiency target, and by 2020 it intended to improve our its energy efficiency by 30 percent compared with 2007 by using such measures as more efficient transport, optimised planning alternative sources of energy and innovative, he disclosed. DHL Global Forwarding Pakistan commenced its operations in Pakistan in 2006 after merging business with Excel PLC. The head office of the company is in Karachi, while it has its branch` offices in Lahore, Sialkot and Islamabad.
