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)