After years of waiting, United Parcel Service and FedEx have received licenses in China to extend domestic express package services to Beijing and other cities without needing joint-venture partners.
The U.S. companies had been waiting for permission to independently courier packages from businesses to consumers (B2C) via their entire Chinese networks, since a 2009 postal law largely restricted foreign firms to delivering packages from abroad.
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The licenses increase access to a market second in size only to the United States. Thanks to online shopping, the Chinese market is growing 60 percent annually and next year could be worth 280 billion yuan ($46 billion), said consultancy Deloitte.