Logistics Blue Paper in Beijing, the first of its kind
prepared by the Beijing Municipal
Bureau of Commerce and the Beijing Materials Institute (BMI),
was issued on June 30. It describes the current state of the
logistics industry and its prospects.
The paper, which surveyed 4,500 logistics companies, took six
months to compile.
Chief Editor Cui Jiehe, a BMI professor, said that Beijing is
now in urgent need of 200,000 logistics talents, including 60,000
high-level logistics management personnel.
Cui added that most of the city's existing logistics workers are
only responsible for storage and goods distribution. They lack
logistics planning and policy-making skills. This is because they
have had no systematic vocational training.
Logistics information technology (IT) is another important area
of concern. Ideally, workers should be familiar with the entire
logistics process if they are to integrate the various processes
and IT systems to meet different customers' needs. It's easy for an
IT person to establish a system, but less so to tailor one
according to a customer's requirements. Conversely, logistics
graduates are generally poor at IT.
This situation is due to poor interdisciplinary education in the
country, Cui said. China has not produced any graduates in
logistics IT.?
Yet, despite the shortage of high-end logistics talents, workers
are not paid well. A competent logistics staffer can only expect a
monthly salary of between 5,000 and 10,000 yuan (US$604-1,208).
Cui explained that because the logistics industry is new to
China, in terms of salary or importance it has none of the striking
advantages, which it usually has in the more developed
industries.
The talents in biggest demand at the moment are those who know
international business and trade, theoretical and applied
technology for transport and logistics, and logistics
management.
(China.org.cn by Guo Xiaohong, July 15, 2005)