ENTRANCE OF INTERNATIONAL LOGISTICS FIRMS INTO MAINLAND CHINA AND ITS SPATIAL NETWORK
WANG Cheng-jin1, LI Guo-qi2
1. Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Beijing 100101, China;
2. School of Transportation & Logistics, Southwest Jiaotong University, National United Engineering Laboratory of Integrated and Intelligent Transportation, Chengdu 610031, China
Abstract With the open of logistics industry in Mainland China, many international or multi-national logistics firms began to enter into Mainland China and construct their logistics network, which has a significant effect on logistics market in Mainland China. In this paper, we probed the entrance path of international logistics firm into Mainland China and regularities of spatial networks. Firstly, the dynamic and static positional information of head offices or controlling corporation, regional head offices or operating corporation, branch offices, representative offices were obtained from Chinese website of international logistics enterprises from 2005 to 2013. Secondly, we described the entrance process of international logistics firms and divided developing phases into three different stages:the initial phase in 1984-1994, the steady development phase in 1995-2004 and the rapid development phase since 2005. The key policies, market scale, important events and major driving factors of different stages were discussed in detail. The expansion mode were divided into agency agreement or alliance cooperation, joint venture, sole proprietorship, merger & acquisition, the relationship between the international logistics firms and logistics policies, market threshold were discussed. Thirdly, based on sample analysis, the category differentiation and functional differentiation were divided in detail, we revealed the structure of logistics network of international logistics firms in Mainland China.Finally, we choose DHL as the case to further study expansion process and locational choose since 1980s.
2016, Vol. 31 
