The National Committee for the Standardization of Logistics Information Management was established yesterday in Beijing to promote the development of China's modern logistics industry.

Approved by the Standardization Administration of China (SAC), the committee is mainly responsible for formulating, revising and implementing standards in logistics information fields such as information groundwork, systems, security, management and information applications.

"Information transmission is the core element in modern logistics industry, therefore, standardization is key to this newly-emerged industry's development," said SAC Director Li Zhonghai yesterday at the committee's establishment ceremony.

However, data exchange and information sharing are difficult to achieve at present, since there have been no unified standards adopted.

The isolated information databases of firms and institutions result in lower efficiency and hinder the logistics sector's healthy and rapid development, Li said.

He urged the new committee to map out an industry-wide standardization system as soon as possible.

China's logistics industry has lagged far behind that of developed countries, leading to problems such as the slow circulation of capital.

The speed of capital turnovers in Chinese enterprises is 1.2 times annually, compared with 20 to 30 times in some multinational companies.

Wang Zhongmin, SAC's deputy director, said the aim for adopting information standards is to help domestic firms and especially logistic companies share databases, quicken capital circulation, lower costs and obtain greater economic efficiency, so as to boost their international competitiveness. Wang was appointed as the head of the new committee.

The first general meeting of the new committee was held yesterday after its establishment, discussing the group's statute and working scheme.

(China Daily August 13, 2003)