Sinolines is one of China’s largest shipping lines, and is also a listed subsidiary of China Merchants group of state-owned Chinese conglomerates with headquarters in Hong Kong.
In February, the Xiamen branch of Sinotrans Global E-commerce Logistics won the tender to provide warehousing and shipping services for Cainiao Tmall Overseas (Taiwan), one of Alibaba’s logistics units.
Despite tense cross-strait relations between China and Taiwan, which saw Taobao close its Taiwan branch last October, Taiwanese consumers continue to shop on Taobao online.
Targeting goods purchased from Alibaba by Taiwanese consumers, the warehouse is in the vicinity of Hutchison Ports-operated Xiamen Haicang Container Terminal.
Xiamen Port is among the top 7 ports of China and is the world’s 16th largest container port. This is a deep-water port that can welcome both ships of 50,000 tons to the port and ships of 100,000 tons to anchor in the port. Especially, Xiamen is the nearest Chinese port to the island and with growing e-commerce sales, the Xiamen Municipal Bureau of Commerce has been exploring ways to speed up cross-straits logistics, such as introducing express shipping schemes.
In the first five months of this year, 351 containers containing more than 540,000 products were shipped from Xiamen to Taiwan, amounting to about $2.84m of ocean freight.
The Xiamen bureau has been encouraging retailers to work with e-commerce platforms to boost sales during the Covid-19 pandemic, which has affected sales at traditional brick-and-mortar stores.
It is hoped that the logistics project will fulfill Taiwanese consumers’ orders on Taobao and Tmall, both Alibaba-owned e-shopping platforms, including shipping, the provision of parcel storage and delivery, and customs clearance.
Minh Ngo
