Economic recovery, consumption key reasons for sectors' solid performance
BEIJING — China's transportation and logistics sectors have registered robust performances, driven by pro-growth policies and consumption potential gradually unleashed since the beginning of 2023, pointing to both the stable recovery trend of domestic demand and growing economic vitality.
The country's inter-regional passenger traffic, fueled by strong demand for business trips, family visits and tourism, surged 31 percent year-on-year to 45.66 billion in the first nine months, said the Ministry of Transport.
Among all types of transport, civil aviation trips showed the biggest growth, rocketing 126.7 percent year-on-year, followed by a 120.9 percent increase in waterway trips and a 112.4 percent rise in railway trips, while road trips jumped 26.8 percent.
In addition, data concerning China's courier sector and international goods transport also indicated rapid growth. China's courier sector saw its delivery volume exceed the benchmark of 100 billion parcels on Oct 23, 39 days earlier than in 2022, said the State Post Bureau.
Since March, single-month parcel volume had exceeded 10 billion, and the monthly business income of the sector had topped 90 billion yuan ($12.29 billion), the bureau said.
In the first three quarters, commercial cargo transport volume went up 7.1 percent year-on-year to 40.31 billion metric tons, according to the transport ministry. Fixed-asset investment in transport reached 2.88 trillion yuan during this period, marking a 5.6 percent year-on-year growth.
During the same period, cargo throughput at China's ports increased 8.5 percent to 12.54 billion tons, with container throughput growing 5.2 percent to reach 230 million twenty-foot equivalent units.
Commenting on the transportation and logistics data, Sun Wenjian, a spokesperson with the transport ministry, said that continued economic recovery and growing consumption demand in the domestic market were among the main reasons for the solid performances of these sectors.
Sun added that robust import demand for major commodities has also lent steam to the stable development of China's logistics sector since the start of this year. The country's total imports of iron ore, coal and grain went up 18.3 percent year-on-year to 1.34 billion tons during the period, the ministry said.
Looking forward, China's demand for freight logistics is expected to peak as the country embraces the "Double 11" consumption season, said Zhou Zhicheng, a researcher with the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.
Zhou said demand for manufacturing and exports amid the upcoming Christmas season will further drive the rapid growth of cargo throughput at ports.
"Another important pillar of the development of transportation and logistics, especially in the export sector, is industrial upgrading. The proportion of high-end manufacturing, automobile manufacturing, and pharmaceutical and chemical products in China's total exports has picked up," Zhou said.
"With the gradual recovery of exports, enterprises have positive expectations for the fourth quarter," he said, adding that social logistics operations are expected to remain in expansionary territory.
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