Shanghai presses local express delivery firms to clean up for listing

SHANGHAI's municipal government has issued a 13-point programme to upgrade the city's express delivery companies, chiefly to clean up corporate governance to make them fit for stock exchange listing, reports Xinhua.

Shanghai, being the market where competition is the fiercest, recorded a express industry revenue of CNY12.2 billion (US$1.96 billion) last year, accounting for 16 per cent of the national market. The average parcels per person came to 17.8 pieces, six times of the national average. Six out of the top 10 express companies have set up bases in the city.

But low-quality service of smaller companies and lack of favourable policies have impeded the healthy development of Shanghai's express industry, said the report.

The measures include encouraging Shanghai express companies to become listed on the stock market, as well as loosening their control on the use of land and old factories and warehouse facilities.

Shanghai will also encourage express companies by subsidising staff training and by improving the registration system to cover more express company branches.

Besides, Shanghai will set up standard for express delivery trucks and introduce traffic signs for these trucks. The city will also issue licences for these trucks to allow them to use roads in the urban areas during daytime. Express packages on trucks that are detained for traffic offences will now be released immediately.

Shanghai is aiming to keep an annual growth of over 25 per cent in the revenue of the express industry, according to Li Huide, director of Shanghai Postal Administration Bureau. The city also aims to foster one or two internationally competitive express companies with annual revenues of over CNY10 billion and a daily package volume of more than three million pieces.