China News Service:

In the last decade, more and more people have chosen to use postal express services, with the average annual delivery volume per capita exceeding 70 parcels. What role has the postal express industry played in serving production, promoting consumption, and smoothing circulation? Thank you. 

Dai Yingjun:

Thank you for your question. As one of the country's important strategic infrastructures and social organization systems, the postal system has played a positive role in serving production, promoting consumption, and smoothing circulation, which is mainly reflected in the following aspects: 

First, it has provided strong support for implementing national policies, benefiting the people, and facilitating business. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the postal network has been rapidly channeled to lower levels, realizing the establishment of postal offices in every township and the accessibility of postal services in every village. This has effectively guaranteed the smooth transmission and implementation of Party's and national policies, met people's need for postal services, and served poverty alleviation and rural revitalization strategies. At present, China has postal routes (one-way) of more than 10 million kilometers in total, an express service network (one-way) of more than 40 million kilometers in total, and 413,000 postal express outlets. The extensive postal express network has provided an important guarantee for the development of a unified domestic market. 

Second, the postal and courier sector facilitates the integrated development of industries. In terms of integrated development with modern agriculture, it has cultivated over 1,000 "One City, One Product" projects where post and express deliveries serve the transport of agricultural products to the cities, among which there are 100 gold medal projects, defined as those with an annual business volume of over 10 million packages. Among them, there may be projects in the hometowns of our friends from the media here, such as flowers and trees in Suqian, Jiangsu province, luoshifen rice noodles in Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, dried seafood in Rizhao, Shandong province, and citrus sinensis in Huaihua, Hunan province. There are also apples in Yan'an, Shaanxi province, and so on. In a word, there are cherries in the north, passion fruit in the south, kiwi fruit in the west, and dried seafood in the east. If you are interested, you can visit the State Post Bureau's website, where we have a post and express delivery map of the agricultural products across the country. In terms of the integrated development with manufacturing, it has developed models such as inbound logistics and the integration of warehousing and distribution, which has improved the service capacity of supply chains. In terms of integrated development with e-commerce, the postal and courier sector has accelerated the commodity circulation and become the main channel for serving e-commerce users. In addition, the online retail sales of physical goods supported by the postal and courier sector have exceeded 10 trillion yuan. 

Third, the postal and courier sector provides a vivid footnote for the "ubiquity" of express delivery. Since the Party's 18th National Congress, benefits of the policies in this sector have been continuously released. Automation and smart technology have been widely adopted. Major reductions in logistics costs have been achieved. And the scale advantage has become more evident. All of these have strongly supported the rapid development of various e-commerce businesses and greatly facilitated people's online shopping. Express delivery has reached thousands of households and has increasingly become a way of life and an important symbol of smooth economic flows.

Fourth, the postal and courier sector provides independent and controllable channels for domestic and international circulations. We are actively promoting the development of international delivery services, advancing the development of cross-border logistics networks, and accelerating the construction of international postal express-delivery hub clusters. By strengthening the cross-border services covering the complete supply chain, the sector is making contributions to the safety of international supply chains and the creation of a new pattern of development. Thank you.