A courier on his way to deliver items in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, on May 6 (XINHUA)

Cui Shichao is a courier at Jiulongshan Express Delivery Center in Chaoyang District of Beijing. He has been in the express delivery business for seven years, but the experience during the past Labor Day holiday from April 30 to May 4 was really rare. In this year’s holiday, many places in the city were designated as lockdown or controlled areas, and residents in other areas were asked to reduce travel and outdoor activities, so as to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19 epidemic.

“At the beginning of the anti-pandemic controls, residents might have been quite anxious. They placed many orders that amounted to more than 5,000 packages [per day] at our center, which was more than three times the usual delivery volume,” said Cui.

Covering the last mile in the field of logistics, Cui is among thousands of couriers across the country who deliver daily necessities to the people. As for the logistics system, it is as important as the urban infrastructure such as power and water, and is closely related to the daily life of the people.

Integrated market

On April 10, China issued a guideline on building a unified national market at a faster pace, aiming to reduce the cost of transactions by facilitating market-oriented allocation of production factors and helping the circulation of goods and services.

“Building a unified national market, especially a modern circulation system, is an important starting point for the realization of ‘dual circulation,’” said Zhao Xiande, a professor at China Europe International Business School.

In his view, it can improve the operational efficiency of the domestic industrial and supply chain, and promote the transformation and upgrade of the industries on the supply side, so as to ensure smooth “internal circulation.”

On the other hand, the improvement of the domestic supply chain will also improve the global competitiveness of Chinese products, thus ensuring smooth “external circulation.”

Amid the recent outbreaks of the pandemic in many areas, ensuring supply has become particularly important. Some areas have encountered certain difficulties in the process of material transportation and distribution. This is a bottleneck in emergency logistics.

The guideline pointed out that China will strengthen the construction of emergency logistics systems, improve the capacity of transportation facilities and logistics sites in high-risk areas to operate in times of emergency, and actively prevent the risk of supply shortages of food, energy and other important products.

According to Zhang Yu, Vice President of the Transportation and Logistics Branch of the China Communications and Transportation Association, recovery from disaster is an important part of ordinary life and emergency logistics service is an integral part of this system.

“We should build a nationally unified emergency logistics information system platform, which can include information sharing, information collection, data analysis, emergency order management, inventory management, etc.,” Zhang said.

Due to the traffic control during the epidemic, providing express delivery service has been very difficult, as the highway exits were blocked, and cities restricted the passage of vehicles.

“This has also exposed the problem of a lack of related rules and unified standards,” Wei Jigang, Deputy Director of the Center for International Knowledge on Development, said. Unified rules and standards are key to building a unified national market, he added. In the context of epidemic prevention and control, the pressure on emergency logistics is actually very high.

Wei believes that during emergencies, an effective mechanism should be formed among departments to carry out top-down design, overall planning and unified scheduling for delivery of materials. In addition, sound legal standards, operational standards and processes, coordination among different units, and division of responsibilities are needed to keep the supply lines running during the emergencies.

A logistics man works at Changsha North Railway Station in Changsha, Hunan Province, on May 22, 2021 (XINHUA)

Digital application

At present, the booming digital technology is constantly changing the status quo of various industries and reconfiguring the industrial value chain; the logistics industry is no exception.

The guideline suggests that the construction of a third-party digital logistics delivery platform should be supported and a number of digital platform enterprises and supply chain enterprises with global influence should be cultivated.

Nowadays, smart logistics enterprises are emerging rapidly, and established logistics giants have also begun to enter this field, which will speed up the construction of intelligent logistics system and solve the problems faced by warehousing, distribution and other links.

At a sorting facility of YTO Express (Logistics) Co. Ltd. in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, staff place packages on the conveyor belt. Through barcode scanning, height detection and shape recognition, package information is automatically entered into the system. The sorting belt can then intelligently choose the right sorting channel for the goods based on different regions and different express outlets, and send the goods to the corresponding channel for distribution to customers.

The person in charge of the site said that since these sorting lines were officially put into use in October last year, the operational efficiency has increased by three to four times to 1,500 to 1,800 pieces per hour compared to the previous purely manual processing.

Besides the smart sorting machine, unmanned delivery vehicles can also push the logistics industry development. Jingdong Logistics Co. Ltd. has made early progress in this field and is currently exploring commercialization.

Smart delivery vehicles that just rolled off the production line have been put into use during the epidemic prevention and control period.

It is understood that each vehicle can carry about 200 kg of goods, has a driving range of 100 km, and can operate in all weather conditions. The smart delivery vehicle can deliver daily necessities such as rice, flour, grain and oil, as well as anti-epidemic materials at any time according to the community needs.

“For the development of the logistics industry, the introduction of the guideline will obviously bring long-term benefits,” said Zhao. “The Central Government is continuously introducing measures to promote resource integration in the industry, and the establishment of China Logistics Group is a case in point.”

However, Zhao also stated that barriers to cross-regional flow of goods still exist at present, and management problems such as diverse rules and uneven implementation have led to a gap between the cost and efficiency of China’s logistics industry.

“After a better policy and business environment is created, the leading companies in China’s various logistics segments will take off, building competitiveness in the global market with stronger resource integration and digital capabilities to provide more professional and comprehensive supply chain services,” Zhao added.