The expanded S$20 million facility, capable of handling over 300 tonnes of cargo per day, is a key component of the express logistics company’s pan-Asian road network and is Singapore’s first integrated air and road hub. In late 2005 TNT hit upon the idea of developing a road network connecting China with Southeast Asia, creating what was essentially a small scale version of their extensive European road network. Named the Asia Road Network (ARN), the basic pan-Asian land network linking China with Singapore came together last year which coincided with the start of a regular Singapore service with a TNT B747-400ER freighter en route from its European hub at Liege, Belgium to Shanghai, China. The opening of this integrated hub in Singapore, “crystallises that strategy,” TNT’s CEO Peter Bakker said at the hub’s official opening. Noting that these are “extraordinarily challenging times,” Bakker went on to say that “the hub and the integrated road and air network show the way forward.”