UPS to Build Healthcare Logistics Hubs in Singapore, China on Asia Growth
United Parcel Service Inc., the world’s largest package-delivery company, plans to open two health-care-logistics hubs in Asia to tap rising regional demand for medical devices and drugs.
The first facility will be in Singapore to handle Southeast Asia and will open in this year, and the second will be in China and will open in early 2011, Derek Woodward, UPS’s Asia-Pacific head, said in an interview yesterday.
“Healthcare is a growing sector, one that we’re going to spend more time developing,” Woodward said in Hong Kong. “With governments spending more on health care and people living longer, it’s a growing industry.”
UPS raised its annual profit forecast last month amid a jump in shipments in Asia and Europe. The company expects “very strong demand” for air and ocean freight within Asia, Woodward said. UPS opened a $180 million logistics hub in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen in May, he said.
The company is seeking to further expand services to the “high-growth” health care, Woodward said.
The hubs in Singapore and China may be wholly owned by UPS or may operate as ventures with drug companies, Woodward said. UPS is still in talks to set capital spending on these facilities, he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Wing-Gar Cheng in Hong Kong at wgcheng@bloomberg.net.
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