Recently, the X8719 express freight train loaded with Jiangsu non-ferrous metal wires, auto parts, cotton yarn and other goods departed from the east freight yard of Changzhou Station of Nanjing Railway Logistics Center and headed for Shilong Station in Guangzhou, Guangdong. On the same day, the X8751 express freight train loaded with goods departed from Shilong Station in Guangzhou and headed for Changzhou Station. At this point, the Changzhou-Shilong express freight train has achieved two-way operation, providing more convenient logistics services for promoting the coordinated economic development of the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta regions.
Logistics is an important link in unblocking the national economic cycle. In recent years, China has introduced a series of policy measures to reduce logistics costs. The level of social logistics costs has steadily declined, and the comprehensive efficiency and service level of logistics have significantly improved, providing strong support for China to build a modern economic system and promote high-quality economic development.
Relevant person in charge of the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said that since the first quarter, China's logistics operation has generally continued the previous recovery trend. The total amount of social logistics has increased steadily, the activity of the logistics market has increased, the supply structure has been continuously optimized, and the overall efficiency of economic operations has improved. "Especially in March, the pace of upgrading of upstream and downstream industrial structures has accelerated, and the transportation and storage turnover efficiency has been significantly improved. Market business entities have positive expectations. The logistics operation is generally stable and progressing."
Good start in logistics operation
The recovery level has generally stabilized and risen.
Recently, data released by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing shows that in the first quarter of 2024, the total amount of social logistics was 88 trillion yuan. Calculated at comparable prices, it increased by 5.9% year-on-year, 0.5 percentage points faster than the fourth quarter of last year and 2 percentage points higher than the same period last year.
Meng Yuan, deputy director of the Logistics Statistics Department of the China Logistics Information Center, analyzed that in terms of growth rate, the total amount of social logistics has accelerated compared with the same period last year and the fourth quarter of last year, continuing the recovery and improvement trend since last year, highlighting a good start in logistics operation and a generally stable and rising recovery level. Judging from the structure of the total amount of social logistics, the fields of agricultural products, imports, and people's livelihood consumption are basically stable. The total amount of industrial goods logistics still accounts for 88% of the total amount of social logistics. The role of logistics in supporting the production field is still strong. Compared with the fourth quarter of last year, the logistics demand growth rates in industrial production, people's livelihood consumption and other fields have maintained a relatively fast recovery trend, and the pulling effect is more obvious.
Meng Yuan pointed out that, on the whole, since the first quarter, the policy effect has continued to be effective. Especially with the implementation of relevant policies of the large-scale equipment renewal and consumer goods trade-in action plan, coupled with the central government's repeated proposals to effectively reduce the logistics costs of the whole society, which is beneficial to logistics development. Logistics-related fixed asset investment has maintained stable growth (among them, railway transportation investment has increased by 17.6%, and air transportation investment has increased by 35.4%). The level of logistics infrastructure has continuously improved, and the logistics operation will also continue its good recovery trend. However, it should also be noted that the fluctuation in the logistics recovery process is still obvious, and the foundation for recovery needs to be consolidated. At present, logistics is still in a critical stage of steady recovery superimposed with structural adjustment, transformation and upgrading.
The overall recovery trend of the logistics industry is obvious
Rural e-commerce logistics continues its relatively fast development trend.
Zheng Guangjun is a truck driver on the Yunmanman platform and has been driving for more than ten years. Since after the Spring Festival this year, especially since March, Master Zheng, who has been running trucks and transporting goods in Guangdong and Fujian regions, has clearly felt the increase in orders.
Just after attending a relative's wedding in his hometown during the May Day holiday, Zheng Guangjun drove his 6.8-meter high-sided truck back to Guangdong to transport goods. He told reporters that except for the fact that due to the limitations of the vehicle itself, he cannot transport fresh ingredients such as seafood that need insulation. He does not pick jobs or goods. As long as he sees an order with a suitable price, he will take it. "I just want to take advantage of this good market and run a few more trips and earn more."
Data released by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing shows that in the first quarter, the total revenue of the logistics industry was 3.1 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.5%. The recovery trend is basically in sync with logistics demand. Especially since March, logistics activity has increased, and positive changes have been obvious in most fields. Indexes such as new orders, total business volume, equipment utilization rate, and inventory turnover rate have all increased significantly.
According to data from the Yunmanman platform, in late March, the shipping tonnage of "furniture and home furnishings" goods increased by 96.2% compared with early March, "digital home appliances" increased by 26.1%, and "apparel, textiles and leather" increased by 21.9%.
"In the first quarter, the overall recovery trend of the logistics industry is obvious, and the industry prosperity level has significantly rebounded." In this regard, Meng Yuan said that the average value of the total business volume index in the logistics prosperity index in the first quarter was 0.3 percentage points higher than the average level of the same period last year, indicating that the current logistics business activity recovery trend is better.
Meng Yuan further pointed out that from a segmented perspective, warehousing and logistics business has rebounded significantly. Logistics business indicators in fields such as air transportation and e-commerce logistics have reached new highs in recent periods. In the first quarter, China's e-commerce logistics business volume index averaged 124.6 points, significantly higher than the average level of the same period last year. Among them, the rural e-commerce logistics business volume index averaged 127.0 points, still 2.4 percentage points faster than the overall e-commerce logistics business volume index, indicating that driven by factors such as rural demand growth and the continuous improvement of county and township logistics distribution systems, rural e-commerce logistics continues its relatively fast development trend.
Fields such as multimodal transport show an accelerated development trend
Help reduce costs and increase efficiency in transportation and logistics.
In the first quarter, transportation and logistics as a whole remained unobstructed. Fields such as multimodal transport showed an accelerated development trend, helping improve transportation and logistics efficiency and enhance coordination.
In spring, the scenery is beautiful and the vegetation is green. Lifting vehicles at Yinchuan International Highway-Railway Logistics Port in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region shuttle back and forth between the freight yard and the storage area to load and unload goods. The park takes highway-railway combined transportation as the main transportation method and radiates adjacent areas such as Shaanxi, Gansu, and Inner Mongolia and North China, accelerating the development of an open economy in inland areas that are not bordering or close to the sea.
Ningxia has strengthened the effective connection between national and provincial trunk highways and industrial parks, unblocked the backbone road networks of urban agglomerations and counties, promoted the construction of distribution highways and railways, and opened up the "last mile" of highway-railway and land-air combined transportation, effectively ensuring the efficient transportation of bulk goods such as coal, ore, and chemical products.
"Through the 'single bill of lading' model and 'one box to the end' delivery, we have achieved the 'landing' of sea shipping containers and the 'going to sea' of railway containers. The cargo delivery time has been shortened from 15 working days to 7 working days." Yan Xinghua, chairman of Ningxia Xinhua Logistics Co., Ltd., told reporters that the company's container shipments were about 20 TEUs per month in 2022, and now it has reached 400 TEUs per month.
This is an epitome of China's development of multimodal transport. In the first quarter, the supporting role of multimodal transport in multiple important logistics hub regions in China has been enhanced. Jiangsu Province completed 408,500 TEUs of container highway-railway combined transportation, an increase of nearly 20%; Hubei Province completed 55,800 TEUs of container rail-water combined transportation, a year-on-year increase of nearly 30%, and the proportion reached a record high; Liaoning port's sea-rail combined transportation volume increased by 29.3% year-on-year. Many places have coordinated to promote the accelerated development of efficient combined transportation methods.
"In the first half of the year, logistics operations are expected to continue to show a recovery and improvement trend of stability and improvement." Regarding the future trend, Meng Yuan said that in the second quarter, as the start-up progress of infrastructure projects continues to accelerate, logistics enterprises have optimistic expectations for future development. The business activity expectation index has rebounded for two consecutive months and is operating at a high level above 55%. Coupled with the steady recovery of investment in the logistics field, the development environment in logistics-related fields continues to be optimized.