What global supply chain churn? FedEx CEO's starting Spore-US freight flights

It's the only logistics company so far to offer a direct connection.

- Ravi Velloor

This week, amid the tariff rumpus, freight forwarding giant FedEx will inaugurate its direct flight from Singapore to the US mainland with a Boeing 777 freighter, the only logistics company so far to offer such a connection.

The new service strengthens the Republic's position as a strategic logistics hub and enhances the region's connectivity on the transpacific trade route. FedEx says shipments from across South-east Asia can now be consolidated in Singapore before making their journey to the US, streamlining international logistics.

For FedEx's India-born chief executive officer Rajesh Subramaniam, whose spare time work involves chairing the US-China Business Council, it is all a matter of common sense.

Although the US is FedEx's principal market, the Asia-Pacific has the largest footprint of any region it operates in. Singapore houses its regional headquarters, and a centre for excellence that works on advanced digital technology, including applied artificial intelligence.

The direct flight is added evidence of the centrality of the Republic in a region he calls the manufacturing base of the world.

"We are (in some ways) a referendum on the global supply chain on a daily basis," says Mr Subramaniam. "The supply chains are evolving as we speak, and we get it first hand. In South-east Asia, it is Thailand's Eastern Economic Corridor. There is Indonesia, and Vietnam. All these markets are seeing strong growth. In Singapore, we are seeing much growth in healthcare and semiconductor (shipments)."

Separately, FedEx's business in India is growing "significantly".

And while the European business also is booming, he adds that that is more because the firm has outperformed the competition rather than the market has grown spectacularly.

That said, in recent weeks, there has been "a little bit of optimism" about the German economy.