(Sharp Finance) Logistics Sector Sends Positive Signals
Recently at Yaowan Comprehensive Port in Nanchang County, Jiangxi Province, cargo ships carried out loading and unloading operations in an orderly manner. Photo by Mao Siyuan (People's Vision).
Data released by the State Post Bureau shows that from January to July this year, the cumulative postal and delivery volume reached 127.44 billion pieces, up 4.2% year-on-year. Of this, express delivery volume totaled 117.47 billion pieces, up 4.8% year-on-year. This is another set of positive dynamic data from the logistics sector recently.
It is understood that the logistics industry is currently operating stably and in an orderly manner, with its market scale continuing to expand, service quality and efficiency steadily improving, innovation momentum constantly accumulating, and comprehensive competitiveness markedly strengthening-providing strong support for the upgrading of consumption and empowering economic and social development.
Total Business Volume Continues to Expand
The China Logistics Prosperity Index for July, released by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, stood at 50.4%, down 0.2 percentage points month-on-month. Analysts believe that although the index fluctuated slightly in July, it remains in expansion overall.
From the perspective of logistics services, industrial logistics is improving, consumer logistics is stabilizing, and bulk transport is slowing. In terms of logistics formats, the total business volume indices for rail, road, and postal express delivery are expanding, while the multimodal transport index remains in a high-prosperity range, with new routes, models, and solutions for combined transport achieving breakthroughs across regions, said Hu Han, analyst at the China Logistics Information Center.
Hu Han explained that the total business volume index has remained in the expansion range for three consecutive months. The indices for rail transport, road transport, postal express delivery, and multimodal transport are all in expansion, with the multimodal transport index at 54%, up 0.5 percentage points month-on-month. Meanwhile, regions continue to innovate in multimodal solutions, with Zhanjiang, Shenzhen, and Ningbo achieving further breakthroughs in water-to-water transshipment, rail-sea intermodal transport, single-document systems, and data interconnection.
For example, express delivery companies are focusing on the demand for outbound sales of Xinjiang agricultural products, adding temporary collection points in producing areas and providing standardized packaging to ensure delivery quality for the 'first mile,' while actively building a multi-party win-win industrial collaboration ecosystem of 'origin empowerment + channel matchmaking + quality logistics' to break down production-sales barriers with customized supply chain solutions and help Xinjiang's quality products reach the whole country.
Market Expectations Stabilizing and Improving
Multiple data show that overall market expectations are stabilizing and improving. The index for enterprise fixed-asset investment completion and the employment index are both above 50%, and the business activity expectation index is 52.8%, down 3.1 percentage points month-on-month, but investment, employment, and expectations remain in the expansion range, said Hu Han.
Recently, when discussing the development of air logistics in the first half of the year, Cui Zhongfu, chief economist of the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, said that despite the International Air Transport Association sharply lowering its 2026 global air cargo growth forecast to 0.2%, China's total freight and mail transport volume still achieved positive 6.0% growth against the trend. In particular, on international routes, the first half saw 2.32 million tons of freight and mail transported, up 13.9% year-on-year, a growth rate significantly above the industry average. Cui believes that in the future, relying on diversified route layouts, refined operations, and digital service capabilities, air logistics enterprises can achieve high-quality sustainable development amid complex and volatile cyclical fluctuations.
JD Logistics stated in its latest half-year report that in the first half of 2026, the company accelerated the deep integration and large-scale application of AI and automation across its entire chain, achieving high-quality growth in revenue and profit. Going forward, JD Logistics will continue to strengthen its integrated supply chain logistics capabilities, consolidate logistics infrastructure, deepen the application and innovation of supply chain technology, deeply integrate into the development of the real economy, and contribute more to effectively reducing society-wide logistics costs and promoting high-quality economic development.
In the view of Liu Yuhang, director of the China Logistics Information Center, although the index fluctuates slightly, it remains in expansion overall, employment, logistics infrastructure investment, and market expectations are stabilizing, and the foundation for the stable operation of the logistics industry is being consolidated. At the same time, positive policy signals have been continuously released recently, placing higher demands on boosting consumer logistics demand and innovating logistics integration scenarios. In the future, the implementation of relevant plans and policies will strongly promote an improving logistics market.
