The opening of Hong Kong – Zhuhai - Macau bridge (HZMB) on Oct 24th opened a new gateway connecting Hong Kong and Pearl River Delta area, which is set to boost the trade and logistics development in the region.
Pearl River Delta area has been a well-known industrial region for decades and is the home to many electronics manufacturer and technology companies. Electronic consumer goods and home appliance producer like Midea, Gree, Huawei and their likes are heavy user of ocean freight due to large export volume.
Since last couple of years, growth in ecommerce business for both B2B and B2C transaction outpaced their counterpart in OEM/ODM, and following such rapid development in new modes of foreign trade, factories in PRD region are taking more and more orders from sellers from online marketplace.
The continuous development of the ecommerce is not only fuelling the development and growth in international trading itself, but adding pressure to the existing logistics modes.
In E-commerce, speedy replenishment is very important and due to high cargo value, scattering distribution flow and small purchase order (Less than 1 ton in weight), most of the consignments are ship in Air freight or express. The logic is quite straightforward, short shipping time from factory to sales market will support a lower safe stock level, reduce unnecessary storage cost and improve cash flow circle.
As far as South China is concern, there is no other place like Hong Kong that is offering so many international flight options to most of the countries of the world. As we speak, most of the ecommerce goods from PRD are sent to freight forwarder in Shenzhen, where it is consolidated and sent across the border to Hong Kong to connect outbound flight.
That said, the opening of HZMB may probably be a game changer for ecommerce cross border logistics in the region.
Geography and coverage
Existing route for export from PRD region is to go via Nansha (as on the map), which takes 3 ~ 4 hours from factory to HK border
With HZMB, no detour is needed as direct route connecting PRD (Zhuhai/Zhongshan/jiangmen) and Hong Kong international airport is in place, an efficient logistics corridor for import and export traffic.
Cross border transportation time
Currently, consignments sent from PRD takes at least two days to reach Hong Kong international airport because
Labor cost is very high in Hong Kong, the freight forwarder in Shenzhen will facilitate sorting and repacking in accordance with destination distribution flow upon receiving loads from factory
To save transportation cost, forwarder will normally wait until a full truck load is fulfilled before sending to Hong Kong
Long waiting time at the border between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, most of the time it takes at least 4 ~ 5 hours for trucker to wait in queue for customs clearance
With HZMB, the operation mode will be completely different.
As new customs procedure and advanced scanning system are introduced to shorten clearance time, it reportedly takes only 10 mins for clearance and 40 mins from Zhuhai port to Hong Kong international airport.
That said, there is thus strong incentive for trucker to do more round trip back and forth instead of waiting for a full truck load and there is possibility that cargoes leave the factory in the morning are able to connect outbound flight in the evening in the same day
Customs clearance process
New process and technology are being applied to support this new logistics corridor i.e.
24 hours shift
Pre-clearance through customs EDI, meaning all consignments eligible for export are cleared before trucker physically arrived at the customs control
Customs processing time: 3 minutes through scanning machine to complete clearance if no additional on-site inspection is requested by customs officer
Transportation cost
Currently through Shenzhen gateway, there is pre-carriage (additional) cost from factory premises to forwarder warehouse at Shenzhen, prevailing transport rate from most PRD area around USD 100 ~ 150/load (within 1T load)
With HZMB, consignments are collected and consolidated locally and sent directly to Hong Kong. Since one way trucking cost could be reduced by 30% along with saving from highway toll charge, there will be a significant cost saving on land transport if ship via Zhuhai gateway which to be reflected in offerings to shipper
Electronic goods and the accessories are top products on ecommerce platform and having holiday sales season around the corner, plan ahead for your import to support a good sales season.
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