Philippines to ask UPS to retain some operations after moving hub
The Philippine government will ask United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) to retain some operations in the country after the U.S. logistics giant announced it was relocating to southern China, President Gloria Arroyo’s spokeswoman said Thursday.
UPS on Wednesday announced the planned transfer of its hub to a more centrally located USD 180-million facility to be built at Shenzen airport.
It said the move would place UPS closer to the center of the region’s economic activity and would improve customer service by reducing transit times across Asia.
The announcement represents a blow to the Philippines, which also faces a possible exit by Intel Corp., the world’s top chipmaker, from its second offshore assembly operations center in Asia.
Arroyo spokesman Lorelei Fajardo told reporters that the authorities at the Clark airport, where UPS had built its USD 300-million intra-Asia hub in 2002, were in talks with the U.S. company’s representatives to explore alternatives to its planned downsizing.
UPS said on Wednesday that it was “exploring placing alternative operations” at its Clark hub, located north of Manila, which it said would “continue to be a strategic location for UPS’s multi-hub network in Asia.”
Staff and flights would be reduced, company officials said, but they didn’t elaborate on the other alternatives.
Fajardo said the Clark International Airport Authority asked UPS to reorient the facility to provide systems patterned after its facilities in Louisville, Kentucky.
The Philippine government will ask United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) to retain some operations in the country after the U.S. logistics giant announced it was relocating to southern China, President Gloria Arroyo’s spokeswoman said Thursday.
UPS on Wednesday announced the planned transfer of its hub to a more centrally located USD 180-million facility to be built at Shenzen airport.
It said the move would place UPS closer to the center of the region’s economic activity and would improve customer service by reducing transit times across Asia.
The announcement represents a blow to the Philippines, which also faces a possible exit by Intel Corp., the world’s top chipmaker, from its second offshore assembly operations center in Asia.
Arroyo spokesman Lorelei Fajardo told reporters that the authorities at the Clark airport, where UPS had built its USD 300-million intra-Asia hub in 2002, were in talks with the U.S. company’s representatives to explore alternatives to its planned downsizing.
UPS said on Wednesday that it was “exploring placing alternative operations” at its Clark hub, located north of Manila, which it said would “continue to be a strategic location for UPS’s multi-hub network in Asia.”
Staff and flights would be reduced, company officials said, but they didn’t elaborate on the other alternatives.
Fajardo said the Clark International Airport Authority asked UPS to reorient the facility to provide systems patterned after its facilities in Louisville, Kentucky.
