Haisan Resources Bhd has further strengthened its market leader position as an integrated cold chain logistics provider in China with three multiple temperature-controlled facilities (MTCF) in China.

Through its wholly owned subsidiary, IGLO International Limited, the group had in early February this year acquired a parcel of land in central Beijing for 18.4 million renminbi (RM8.2 million) with plans to start the MTCF there in the future while the Shanghai MTCF is expected to start operating this month. Haisan currently has an MTCF in Guangzhou which was in operations since 2003.

Shanghai is one of the largest cold room facilities with 25,000 pallet spaces of chilled and frozen storage rooms in different racking configurations. Guangzhou on the other hand has 8,000 pallet spaces.

"Logistics service is viewed as an emerging business in the service industry worldwide, especially in China. The cold chain infrastructure that will be needed to serve China's population of 1.3 billion consumers is a massive opportunity that global food and retail companies are eager to tap into," said Haisan president and chief executive officer Ong Chin Yet.

"For FY06, our overseas operations (in China and Vietnam) contributed approximately 26% to the group's revenue," he said.

Haisan via its wholly owned subsidiary, IGLO (M) Sdn Bhd, implemented a radio frequency identification (RFID) system to track goods stored in the warehouse here with the lowest temperature of up to –28°. This is the first RFID system to be implemented for temperature-controlled logistics in Malaysia.

IGLO vice president Tan Soo Keong said: "We are going to implement the RFID tag in all the MTCF in China soon. The RFID is to improve space management, real time inventory control and management, data accuracy and efficiency. The RFID could minimise human error to 1%."

The implementation of RFID system in Haisan is divided into three phases, with Phase 1 focusing on pallets location tracking, Phase 2 with the zone tracking and the third phase with the individual carton tracking.

Speaking to reporters after the company's RFID system demonstration here yesterday, Tan said he expected the first phase's implementation to be completed in the first quarter of 2008 while other two phases to take about eighteen months to complete after the implementation of Phase 1.

"The investment for Phase 1 is RM1.5 million. Products that we stored in the warehouses are mainly ice-cream, meat, fisheries and other halal food-based products."

"With the implementation of RFID system, we are confident that our earnings are going to be improved," he added.