China's less-than-truckload logistics-related policies have undergone a transformation from encouraging enterprises to establish logistics distribution outlets in urban and rural areas to intelligent logistics and the transformation of logistics distribution facilities. From 2019 to 2021, the Chinese government was committed to enhancing the terminal service capabilities of less-than-truckload logistics. Since 2022, the Chinese government has supported the empowerment of less-than-truckload logistics by intelligent distribution facilities.
– Interpretation of the development goals of the less-than-truckload logistics-related industry at the national level.
In May 2022, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for Modern Logistics Development." The "Plan" pointed out that by 2025, China will build a modern logistics system that is suitable for supply and demand, internally and externally connected, safe and efficient, intelligent and green. The development plan for the overall modern logistics system including less-than-truckload logistics is as follows:
China's less-than-truckload logistics is divided into nationwide, regional, and dedicated line less-than-truckload logistics. Among them, dedicated line less-than-truckload logistics can efficiently load and compress trunk line costs and has a strong trunk line advantage, but the short-haul cost is high and the terminal distribution capability is weak. Due to its multi-level distribution model, nationwide less-than-truckload logistics has obvious terminal advantages, but this has increased trunk line costs. Regional less-than-truckload logistics mainly gathers and lays out networks within the province. However, compared with nationwide less-than-truckload logistics, the demand for visualization needs to be improved.
In terms of the operation of less-than-truckload logistics enterprises, at present, the entire less-than-truckload logistics industry in China is facing shortcomings such as serious service homogeneity, insufficient informatization level, and high operating cost pressure that urgently need to be improved.
According to the IT Orange database, on the whole, the number of investment and financing in China's less-than-truckload logistics industry as a whole shows a trend of continuously rising and then sharply decreasing. In 2022, it reached the highest value of 3 cases, and in 2023, the number of investments reached 1 case.
In terms of investment and financing scale, the investment amount in the less-than-truckload logistics industry reached a historical peak of 12.12 billion yuan in 2021. In 2022, the investment amount in the less-than-truckload logistics industry was 855 million yuan. In 2023, the investment amount in the less-than-truckload logistics industry was 500 million yuan.
On the whole, China's less-than-truckload logistics industry is currently highly competitive, and landmark events such as mergers and acquisitions and integrations are constantly emerging. Midstream enterprises expand their scale through horizontal acquisitions. In the future, the number of new market entrants will continue to decline, and the concentration of market share will continue to gather. In terms of investment and financing, digitalization and new technologies are becoming important investment and financing directions for the less-than-truckload logistics industry.