DHL plans to expand operations in Pakistan by investing $9 million in warehouses, tracking fleet and training of human resources. "Although it is not a big investment but it shows confidence of DHL in Pakistan and besides this investment, we can also help Pakistan in upgrading its communication infrastructure like domestic transportation, under-developed airports etc," said Melvin Chang, CFO South Asia, DHL Global Forwarding in a interview with Business Recorder.
Chang is associated with DHL for the past 10 years. He joined DHL Global Forwarding as Controller Finance for South Asia Pacific Region. In addition to global air and ocean freight services as well as supply chain solutions, DHL Global Forwarding Pakistan is providing a range of value-added services, including in-house customs brokerage, integrated domestic warehousing, inventory management and distribution solutions for greater cost and delivery efficiency, he informed.
"We are confident that business in Pakistan will continue to grow especially by exports of apparel and footwear," he said. In terms of Pakistani market and customers, we provide end to end supply chain solutions to SMEs to reach every corner of the world at competitive price. DHL is also training fresh graduates through Management Trainee Programme in Pakistan. Pakistan has a lot of opportunities. It has 176,000km of street which even India and African countries don't have, he said. "We are committed to use our strengths in such a way that local communities can get maximum benefit," Chang said.
DHL is also working for the protection of the environment, which is another important part of our strategy, in addition to this DHL Global Forwarding Pakistan's trained professionals can assist the total logistics necessary to facilitate safe, reliable delivery of your cargo to project sites anywhere in the world, he added.
He said that DHL's "Project Services" staff has successfully completed complex moves to remote inland points for a vast array of companies, including those involved in mining, oil, power plants, construction, engineering and other industries. Talking about the government policies, he said that government was DHL's key customer and they were providing all required support to facilitate them. In short, DHL has very good business relationship with the government of Pakistan, he added.
Chang presented a collective role of government and other stakeholders including logistic providers as a remedy to bring businesses and investors to Pakistan. It is important for the government to have a comprehensive range of logistic services to make the local business competitive, he stressed.
Talking about CSR services he said that DHL Global Forwarding is committed to make a lasting and positive role in the world by using knowledge in the way that benefit people and the environment. "our three strategic focus areas of involvement GoGreen, GoHelp and GoTeach reflect our business world as well as our global responsibility for society".
DHL fulfils its social responsibility by supporting climate protection, disaster management, in case of any catastrophe, our DHL Disaster Response Team provides free support in co-operation with the United Nations, he elaborated. "As for DHL's world-wide operations, I will say, DHL is the global market leader in the logistics industry," he said. DHL is operating in more than 220 countries and has about 470,000 employees, including 37.7 percent women world-wide. It offers customers superior service quality and local knowledge to satisfy their supply chain requirements, he added.
"We also have expert teams, DHL Global Forwarding's focuses on selected industry sectors means customers benefit from working with specialists - not just in logistics, but also in their particular marketplace," Malvin said. "Our aim is to build long-term partnerships and work closely with our customers - often shoulder to shoulder with their management teams," he said.