China's express delivery industry has seen rapid expansion into the country's rural areas with at least a quarter of the 400 million parcels nationwide each day now delivered from and to rural areas.
By Tuesday, the country's express delivery sector has handled 100 billion parcels this year, reaching the same milestone 71 days ahead of last year's pace.
The average monthly delivery volume has exceeded 13 billion parcels, while monthly revenue has surpassed 100 billion yuan (13.9 billion U.S. dollars), both setting new records, according to the data released by the State Postal Bureau on Tuesday.
In Gaobao, a village in southwest China's Guizhou Province, resident Guo Fang has just received her bed ordered online. The furniture was sent from Foshan, a city almost 1,000 kilometers away in Guangdong Province.
"I have always wanted to buy a new bed, so I placed an order online. The delivery was very fast, sent straight to home in three days. They even helped me carry it upstairs and install it. I think it is very convenient. In the past, I had to go to malls to buy furniture, and I might not be able to choose a satisfactory one in one trip. Sometimes it was not so convenient to go there myself. But now I can buy it at home," said Guo.
This convenience was unimaginable in the past when picking up a parcel meant traveling 20 kilometers to the county town. Now, with an improved transportation network and a three-tier logistics system covering counties, towns, and villages, rural residents can easily access a wide range of products.
"The business volume of our town this year has increased 10 to 15 percent year on year. The category with the largest growth is basically large goods heavier than three kilos, especially furnitures and home appliances, which registered a growth of about 20 percent," said Wu Guiru, general manager of an express company's Guizhou branch.
Behind the radical change is the improving infrastructure. Over 1,200 county-level public delivery service centers and more than 300,000 village-level logistics stations have been set up across China, creating a comprehensive rural delivery network.
This network has led to a tenfold increase in rural parcel delivery over the past decade.
Express delivery companies are also investing in smart equipment, significantly reducing delivery times in western regions. At transfer centers, advanced 360-degree barcode recognition technology and automated sorting systems enable delivery to major cities within two days.
"The rural areas have turned from a vast outback without convenient shopping in the past to being convenient to buy anything at present. Express delivery is helping China's villages achieve a leap in consumption pattern," said Wang Yuehan, director of the State Postal Bureau's development and research center.
China's express delivery sector energizes broad rural commodity market
A Chinese envoy urged the United States on Friday to desist from undermining international solidarity, creating division and antagonism, and provoking bloc confrontations on the Ukraine crisis.
"In the ongoing Ukraine crisis, there has been a steady influx of large quantities of weapons and ammunition into the battlefield," which will only lead to escalated situation and the loss of more civilian lives, Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, said at the UN Security Council briefing on arms supply to Ukraine.
High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu said at the meeting that any transfer of weapons and ammunition must comply with the applicable international legal framework and Security Council's resolutions. She called on all parties to act in accordance with international humanitarian law, protect civilians and civilian facilities, and resolve the current conflict through political means at an early date.
In the discussion that followed, Vasily Nebenzya, Russian permanent representative to the UN, said that using long-range missiles supplied by Western countries to strike Russia will result in severe consequences. He reiterated that Russia is open to negotiations with Ukraine, while the Western nations are unwilling to engage in dialog.
In response to remarks by the U.S. representative, Geng emphasized that "China did not create the Ukraine crisis, much less are we a party to the conflict."
China has not supplied weapons to either party, and has consistent and rigorous controls over dual-use items, said Geng, adding China maintains normal trade and economic cooperation with all countries around the world, including Russia and Ukraine.
He called on the parties to the conflict to demonstrate their political will, meet each other halfway, put an early end to the hostilities, and relaunch peace talks. He also called on the international community to pave the way to this end by providing tangible assistance and facilitation, and urged all parties concerned to put peace and humanity first and re-channel their resources and energy to ending hostilities through diplomacy.
Underscoring that China's position on the Ukraine issue "is objective and impartial," the ambassador said that for over two years, China has been working hard to promote peace and encourage and facilitate peace talks.
He elaborated the efforts made by China and other countries on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis, including the six-point consensus jointly issued by China and Brazil in May this year. This fully demonstrates that diplomatic negotiations and a political settlement meet the common expectations of the majority of countries and represent the will of the international community, Geng added.
"We hope that the United States will not continue to turn a deaf ear to these calls for peace, that it will desist from discrediting and obstructing the diplomatic efforts of China and other countries concerned, undermining international solidarity, creating division and antagonism, and provoking bloc confrontations, and that it will truly play a constructive role in bringing an early end to the war and achieving peace," Geng said.
Chinese envoy urges US to desist from creating antagonism
