Express delivery services are now available in 95% of China's incorporated villages. Listed logistics companies are actively opening up the "last mile" of rural logistics.
Reporter Wang Jingru Shilu
Since the "Express delivery to villages" project was launched in 2014 and upgraded to "Express delivery to villages" project in 2020, the State Post Bureau has carried out the "Express delivery to villages" project for the tenth year. According to the latest data, 990 county-level public delivery centers and 278,000 village-level express delivery service stations have been built under the project, covering 95 percent of the country's incorporated villages.
In 2023, the State Post Bureau has proposed that this year it will firmly promote the construction of rural delivery logistics system, consolidate the achievements of the three-year action of "express delivery to villages", strengthen the construction of county-level public delivery distribution centers and village-level comprehensive delivery logistics service stations, promote the cooperation of delivery and mail, mail and express and other joint delivery modes, and deepen the integrated development of "passenger, freight and mail" in rural areas. We will continue to promote the automatization of rural postal routes, and launch coordinated demonstrations of rural e-commerce express delivery services.
Analysys Brand retail industry center analyst Wei Jianhui told the Securities Daily reporter: "China's express industry has entered the stage of stock competition, and finding new incremental markets has become the key. Rural logistics, as one of the emerging incremental sources of the express market, improves the rural express logistics distribution system, which will help express enterprises to continuously strengthen the breadth and depth of terminal network, promote the development of rural economy, and release the vitality of rural consumption. In the long run, it will also lay a solid foundation for promoting urban and rural economic integration, common prosperity and the development of a unified big market."
The construction of rural logistics system has achieved remarkable results
Public data show that last year, China's express service modern agriculture gold medal project not only continued to expand its business scale, but also increased the value of its products, driving the total agricultural output value to exceed 200 billion yuan for the first time, up 36.8% year-on-year. The most obvious is tea, lychee, cherry, seafood and other fresh fruit agricultural products continue to increase.
From the perspective of the development of some listed logistics enterprises, in 2022, Jingdong Logistics Xinjiang Origin intelligent Supply chain Center opened its warehouse in Jiashi County, Kashgar Prefecture, which improved the sorting efficiency of prune, filled the gap in the classification of prune fruit, and also connected with Shaanxi Wugong warehouse, reducing the transportation cost by 20%.
The relevant person in charge of Jingdong Logistics said that Jingdong Logistics helps agriculture, always based on the whole agricultural industry chain, and effectively promotes more than 1,000 industrial belt projects in the country to realize the docking of production and marketing. Moreover, through solid supply chain layout, innovative digital technology capabilities, modern agricultural technical personnel training to teach people to fish and other ways, Forming a positive cycle of high-quality agricultural products, increasing farmers' income and high-quality development of rural economy. "Good fruit at a good price."
The relevant person in charge of SF Holding said that the current service frequency of SF Express in some remote rural areas is "receiving one station and one station" every day. In the future, SF Express will directly build distribution points in county towns and even large towns, so that the express can be closer to the rural areas, save the time of service cooperation points on the road, and further sink its own resources, and constantly reduce the branch cost of service cooperation points. At the same time, it will also reduce operating costs in remote areas by means of mail and express cooperation and delivery cooperation.
It is understood that SF Holding has built 100,000 rural service cooperation stations, of which 60% to 70% are located in the central and western regions, and more than 10% are located in the three northeastern provinces; By the end of 2022, SF Holding service cooperation points had provided 500 million mutual mail services in towns and villages, provided mail and delivery services to 36 million villagers, assisted 200,000 rural households to leave their villages, and reached consumers with over 4,000 kinds of agricultural products.
"At present, the coverage rate of Zhongtong township is more than 94 percent, and there are 12 golden agricultural products that ship more than 10 million pieces annually. In 2022, ZTO will deliver more than 8 billion items in rural areas, helping rural revitalization through express delivery. This year, ZTO will continue to increase the construction of rural logistics systems at the county, township and village levels to help activate urban and rural consumer markets and boost consumer confidence." Zhongtong Express responsible person told "Securities Daily" reporter said.
Yto Express insiders told "Securities Daily" reporters that in order to support the rural revitalization cause, the company has built more than 40,000 rural post stations in the countryside. Yto will further explore the international market, penetrate into rural areas, accelerate the effective promotion of domestic county, township, village three-level delivery logistics and rural first-level warehouse processing center, parcel distribution center and other supply chain infrastructure construction."
Open up the last kilometer of rural logistics
Over the past 10 years, China's express delivery industry has grown from a "dark horse" to a "stallion", with its business volume growing more than 20 times from 9.1 billion in 2013 to 110.5 billion in 2022, and the quality of development has significantly improved.
However, there are still many express delivery services that do not reach villages and towns and cannot meet the needs of rural people. In the view of Wang Yuehan, associate researcher of the Development Research Center of the State Post Bureau, the end profit is meager, the cost is high, driven by the policy dividend, express "easy to enter the village, difficult to stay in the village" phenomenon does often appear, enhance the hematopoietic capacity is still the construction of rural delivery logistics will go through difficulties.
"To solve the problem of the last mile of delivery to rural areas, we must also solve the problem of agricultural products going up, rural express fees and other problems. In addition, how to integrate rural logistics with the supply and marketing system is the key to the development of the sinking market." A listed logistics enterprise management told "Securities Daily" reporter said.
In addition, there are also listed logistics companies in the last mile and integration of agricultural products supply and marketing system efforts. For example, an insider of Deppon Express told Securities Daily: "Deppon Express facilitates the transportation of agricultural products in all regions of the country, promotes the sales of local agricultural products, and provides guarantees for the delivery of express logistics in remote areas, further promoting the 'delivery to villages' and doing its best to open up the' last kilometer '. Deppon Express goes into rural fields to understand farmers' needs and make targeted programs. Drive the car to the destination to pick up the goods, give agricultural products exclusive preferential prices, customize exclusive packaging, open the green channel, prioritize the transfer of agricultural products, directly from the destination to the airport to get on the plane, exclusive identification at the end of the priority delivery, develop strict control mechanism to ensure the first time safe delivery."
Looking into the future, the above ZTO Express insiders told reporters that China's express as a basic, guiding and strategic industry of the national economy will play a more prominent role. In the future, express will promote the revitalization of the country's rural areas by increasing the "two in and one out" (express delivery into villages, into factories and out to sea), and promote common prosperity. It will make greater contributions to major strategies such as building a powerful transportation country.
