DHL invests $1M in upgrades, services in P.R. in ’16
From left: Javier Alemán, station manager, DHL Global Forwarding Puerto Rico and María Isabel Romero, director of the Office of Special Services, Department of Economic Development and Commerce.
DHL Global Forwarding, the air and ocean freight specialist within Deutsche Post DHL Group, confirmed Thursday it invested close to $1 million in Puerto Rico last year.
The company is celebrating 10 years as a dedicated Life Science Competency Center, out of the approximately 60 years it has been in operating locally.
Additionally, this year it is opening four new temperature-controlled storage chambers in San Juan. The 6,792 square-foot DHL warehouse was expanded to six times its original size into environmentally controlled cold chambers, company officials said.
“Through our investments, we have shown we believe in Puerto Rico’s growth potential, and we are confident we are part of the engine that can help it regain its solid economic footing in the global marketplace,” said David Bang, global head of DHL Temperature Management Solutions/CEO LifeConEx, DHL Global Forwarding.
“Given its strategic location, Puerto Rico has been an important launch point for DHL to the Americas, Europe and Asia, and as one of the DHL certified life science stations, it provides services and coverage to more than 2,000 trade lane pairings in secure and compliant manner,” he said.
Most recently, it invested in dividing its current warehouse in San Juan into three independently operated cold chambers with a combined capacity of 480 pallets.
“Within the last decade, pharmaceutical companies have increasingly invested in Puerto Rico, and these companies need a strong network and cold chain infrastructure to handle their delicate medicines and pharmaceutical products,” said Frank Cascante, head of Business Development Americas for DHL Temperature Management Solutions, DHL Global Forwarding.
“DHL Global Forwarding has expanded to meet the growing needs of this important pharmaceutical market by offering it our cutting-edge temperature-controlled services,” he said.
In the second quarter of 2017, the DHL Global Forwarding San Juan facility will join the 30 DHL stations worldwide to be awarded the International Air Transport Association Center of Excellence for Independent Validators in Pharmaceutical Logistics certification, the company said.
