That same month, its supply chain arm said it would invest €350 million (S$508 million) in South-east Asia, including increasing its total warehouse space in Singapore by more than 50 per cent.

“We have been expanding dramatically in Singapore,” Mr Christopher Ong, managing director for DHL Express Singapore, told The Straits Times.

“During the pandemic, we learnt that we can’t put all our eggs in one basket… If a location gets shut down, we can’t fulfil our jobs. So through our multi-hub strategy, we are able to have alternatives.”

Hong Kong’s stringent Covid-19 restrictions saw its borders shut for about three years. With the dearth of visitors, air cargo capacity – two-fifths of which comes from passenger planes – plunged, and the city’s cargo business was significantly disrupted.

DHL’s air network in Asia comprises four main hubs – Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore and Bangkok – but Hong Kong has long been regarded as one of the logistics giant’s top three global hubs, alongside Leipzig in Germany and Cincinnati in the United States.

The city remained the world’s busiest cargo airport in 2022 despite a 16.5 per cent drop in the volume of air cargo it handled compared with 2021, according to data released in July by aviation non-governmental organisation Airports Council International World. Singapore ranked a distant 16th.

“Hong Kong will continue to play a very critical role in the air cargo market,” Mr Ong said, “but during the pandemic, while governments did what they thought was best for their populations, businesses had to adapt to those challenges on the ground.”

While the senior executive said it made sense to bypass the city and use Singapore for cargo coming from South-east Asia, he admitted that compared with Hong Kong, Singapore might not always be the most efficient base from which to fly cargo to certain parts of the world, such as Japan and the US.

“But in Hong Kong’s big cargo airport, there is also often the challenge of congestion, so we are diversifying such risks,” he said, adding that the pandemic helped accelerate the move.

One of DHL’s main rivals, FedEx, announced in May that it was moving its Asia headquarters and relocating staff from Hong Kong to Singapore, though it planned to retain a “significant” presence in the city.