SHENZHEN Mayor Li Hongzhong likened an international logistics conference to "a banquet of thoughts."

Jointly organized by the Boao Forum for Asia and the Shenzhen Municipal Government, the conference ran Saturday (Dec 11th) and Sunday (Dec 12th) and featured many prominent speakers.

"The experience of the EU holds good lessons for Asia. We too must remove cross-border impediments to trade, and facilitate and smoothen the movement of goods within Asia. One way is by having free trade agreements amongst ourselves, while opening up our skies to facilitate the flow of people and goods," Yeo Cheow Tong, Singaporean minister for transport, said Saturday morning when addressing the conference.

According to Xu Zuyuan, vice minister of communications of China, China will create a sound market environment for the operation of overseas transport and logistics businesses in China by improving its transportation laws and regulations and establishing a uniform, open and competitive transportation market.

"We will continue to push reforms to diversify investment approaches on the road, the water and in ports to commercialize transportation operations," he said, adding that China would continue pushing forward negotiations with ASEAN to create a stable market environment for international shipping. Xu also mentioned China's cooperation with the Great Mekong Sub-region and the Kunming-Bangkok highway and said China would work with other countries in Asia to build a "new Silk Road."

In his lecture, Peter Frederiksen, senior vice president of AP Moller-Maersk, mentioned lowering China's logistics cost. He said while logistics in the United States cost only 10 percent, in China the cost amounted to more than 20 percent. He also said China's western region could surpass the eastern region in competitiveness by reducing logistics costs.

Hayao Hora, vice minister for international affairs in the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation of Japan, cited excessive competition and terrorism as two hindrances to the world's maritime transport development. He said use of information technology could be one of the solutions.

John Langley, former president of the U.S. Council of Logistics Management, focused his speech on supply chain management. He said the level of expertise of Chinese government officials and enterprise managers was still low compared to high quality chain management found in the West. He also said with development the speed of supply chain management in China would be faster than it is today and could eventually be a little bit faster than in other regions in the world.

The forum, held in the Wuzhou Guest House with several side venues, featured a total of 54 speakers.

Logistics has been set by the city government as one of Shenzhen's three mainstay industries along with IT and finance. According to Shenzhen mayor Li Hongzhong, Shenzhen, as a gateway between the Pan-Pearl River Delta region and the international market with the fourth largest container port in the world, will develop into a regional logistics hub.

Editor: Wing