The Global Production Network and Its Impacts on the Logistics Industry of China

The role of logistics industry plays both in countries' level and in enterprises' level becomes more and more important.Some scholars and governmental officers had realized that.But the geographers' research often neglected this field.With the help of the information technology and modern logistics industry,the transnational corporations can transfer the production,transportation,assembling and distribution sectors to the developing countries,and maintain the headquarter,RD,marketing sectors in developed countries.Thus,global production network was formed with the TNC as the core company.Each part of the world was involved in the Global Production Networks(GPN) to different extent.Economy geography lends a good tool to better understand how the GPNs are shaping the regional logistics industry.The empirical research using secondary data shows that under the Global Production Networks,China had been one of the most important manufacturing bases in the world.China had become an important node in the global logistics networks with four of the five biggest container ports in the world in 2006.As the openness of the Chinese logistics market,the global biggest integrators entered the Chinese logistics market.With the nation-owned firms,private logistics firms,it also becomes one of three important parts of the logistics market in China;the impacts of GPNs on the logistics industry also include: the manufacturers and retailers outsource more logistics business to the professional logistics company,which enlarges the markets for the Third Party Logistics(TPL) service providers;more and more firms induce in the Logistics Information Systems(LIS);the role of distribution center played has been more and more important in the whole supply Chain,which made a great change in the mode of the logistics network organization.In a word,the supply chain of firms becomes more and more integrated;it is helpful to promote the competitiveness of the logistics firms of China.Under this circumstance,the logistics firms in China should realize the chances and the challenges that globalization brought in,make reasonable judgments,and take the strategy of alliance or cooperation with other firms to survive themselves.