UPS OPENS INTRA-ASIA HUB

UPS OPENS INTRA-ASIA HUB    United Parcel Service on Wednesday opened its intra-Asia hub in the Pampanga province in the Philippines.
   The new hub, situated 50 miles northwest of Manila, will be able to sort 3,500 packages and documents per hour. UPS said the hub will give most customers in Asia a later deadline for dropping off packages and documents, thus improving service and reliability. The hub is also expected to accelerate delivery times for goods moving within and out of Asia, UPS said.
   The 23,000-square-foot hub is located at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (formerly Clark U.S. Air Force Base) and sits in the Clark Special Economic Zone, which allows expedited customs procedures.
   The new hub will also enable UPS to offer new services, including UPS Worldwide Express, its guaranteed next-day, early morning delivery service, across Asia’s major markets. With hubs in Taipei, Hong Kong and Singapore, the Philippines hub links UPS’s Asia Pacific air network.
   The intra-Asia trade market is expected to be one of the fastest-growing in the world, growing at a rate of 16.8 percent a year through 2005, according to MergeGlobal, a logistics and trade strategy consulting firm. Additionally, recent studies by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations project a 7- to 18-percent increase in air cargo traffic in Southeast Asia over the next 20 years.