During the past 22 years, China has developed into the second largest economy in the world, with a recorded GDP of CNY 121.02/USD 17.80 trillion in 2022. This is a great achievement in economic growth, and we have also seen much development of infrastructure—one of the most important factors to carry on the economic growth in China. And, I believe our government will not downsize their investment in infrastructure development in the next 10 years.

My family was planning a summer vacation in Xinjiang recently, and we were very curious about the high airfare from Shanghai to Urumqi. Then we were thinking of flying to the nearby province Ningxia and driving all the way to Urumqi. After checking on the map, I realized that it is a long way—2,000 kms in a single trip. Huh, how big is our home country?!

Well, now I can understand why our government made huge investments in railway systems, especially the High-Speed Train (HST)network. Nowadays, China has the largest HST network in the world, with over of forty-two thousand kilometers of rail covering all the provinces and region in the country, including Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang. Basically, people can travel to the capital of any province by HST in a very comfortable coach with timely schedules and many conveniences. HST is the people’s first choice for travel, which accounts for 70% of railway passengers.

Meanwhile, we have also seen great infrastructure developments in highways and airports. Back in 2006, when I graduated from university and started my career in Shanghai, there was no highway in my hometown in Anhui province. Now there are two highways passing by my hometown, and two more bridges built on the Yangtze River. This has aided the local economic growth at my hometown; Anhui province was ranked at 10th place in GDP among 31 provinces and regions in 2022, compared to 15th place in 2006. The capital city Hefei has the country’s largest EV (Electric Vehicle) industry, which hosts some of the top EV manufacturers like VW, NIO, and ONE.

While enjoying the fast economic growth of the past two decades, citizens also suffered from the pollution in the air and water. By the time the U.S. embassy started to report the daily PM2.5 in Beijing, right before Beijing Olympic Games, the country realized that air pollution was really bad at that time. In the past 14 years, government has done many things to improve the air quality:

• Plant more trees in the North China to stop heavy dust storms; no one is allowed to cut down a tree in the country without a permission.

• Smaller, low-efficiency coal mines were shut down to minimize dust pollution and improve the procedure of producing and transporting coal.

• Using more cleaner energy like gas, oil, hydropower, and wind power; usage of coal has decreed to 56.8% of the total energy consumption in 2020, compared to 81.3% in 2010.

• All construction fields within cities must take steps to control the dust pollution, including cleaning trucks before leaving the site and covering the open ground to control spread of the dust.

• EV cars are being promoted to the public; China is now the biggest EV market, and by the end of 2022, there were 13.1 million EVs registered.

• At AMR, we have managed to reduce the use of the paper at office, replaced all the office lights with energy saving lamps like LEDs, and we have also started using digital inventory.

After 20 years, having paid the price to improve the environment, we are glad to see more and more blue-sky days, greener mountains, and cleaner lakes and rivers. China’s government has announced a target of controlling carbon emissions to peak by 2030, and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060.

In China, moving companies mainly move expat families who are working for global companies; there are not many local Chinese accounts. During the 2000s, China’s economy boomed with approximately 8% annual growth; this investment flowed into our country, bringing rich moving businesses with it. Gradually, when the economy cooled down after 2010, moving companies experienced heavy outbound business in 2012–2014. Volume kept going down every year until Covid struck, but moving companies actually survived well during the pandemic. We maintained a strong outbound business, but unfortunately, inbound was really disappointing.

Even now that China has abandoned its “Zero Covid” policy, there is still a long way to go. Following the global relocation trend, the new generation prefers to live in serviced apartments. The volume of expat consignments is getting smaller, and many come by air freight only. This year, we have seen that Chinese families make up 60% of our consignments, compared to approximately 30–40% before Covid. Employers in China seemingly will not host many expat families anymore, so as a moving company, we also have to adjust our operation to better serve the Chinese families. As we found, moving Chinese families is quite different from our former expat customers.

Most Chinese families do not have much experience of moving abroad. This is a new trend with more and more employers relocating Chinese staff overseas to gain experience, and promoting them to key positions after they relocate back to China. We have experienced some challenges when working with Chinese Families:

• Chinese families do not make strict plans or schedules for relocation, many of those consignments are rush moves, which need to happen within 2–3 weeks.

• The family size is normally small (when they have the choice of a whole family move), but most likely the relocation will be just for the employee himself; in our culture, people do not move much in their life, especially with school age kids.

• Shipment volumes are small—most families still keep their house or apartment in China and move personal effects only; And they prefer to buy new furniture at their new home overseas.

• Visas became challenging during the pandemic, and the duration of relocation process took longer than expected; we have experienced big delays in a few consignments due to the visa issue.

At AMR, we have taken many steps to adjust our operations and internal procedures, to teach Chinese customers how to prepare for relocation, and eventually to make a successful relocation, including:

• Publishing a bilingual language version of some key documents like export documentation, customs regulations, and the prohibited items list.

• Publishing brochures with photos and videos to help our customers better understand how AMR packs their belongings, to convince and encourage them to bring more.

• Publishing a detailed time planner, specially designed for Chinese families with a clear time frame, to make sure some key points remain on track, like surveys, insurance and move dates.

• Making a group chat via Wechat, as Chinese customers prefer timely communication and demand quick responses from suppliers in China.

• Investing in technology and cloud services to reach out to customers for virtual surveys after working hours. All our employees are able to visit our moving system from home.

We have seen many positive signs in the Chinese market, and expect to welcome more expat families to the country. We hope our inbound business will move fast in the second half of this year of Rabbit. China’s market is still among the most important consumption markets in the world and an attractive place for foreign investment, adventurers, and of course, assignees.

AMR International Relocation was founded in 2015 and joined IAM in the same year. We are also active members of FIDI, PAIMA, BAR and ARA. AMR has offices in Shanghai (HQ), Beijing and Taipei, with operations throughout the greater China area including Hong Kong, through our deep local supply chain and network.