Better lives

Like Zhang Furong and her neighbors, many farmers in rural areas have gained a new path to wealthier lives thanks to the expansion of the parcel delivery network to the rural areas.

Last year, China's various logistics companies handled 108.5 billion parcels, with 37 billion of them sent from and delivered to rural areas, more than 30 percent of the total. The combined value of the products in the packages sent from and to the rural areas was more than 1.85 trillion yuan ($291 billion).

The expansion of the network has boosted the movement of industrial goods from urban to rural areas and also facilitated the transportation of agricultural produce from rural to urban areas, said Ma Junsheng, director of the State Postal Bureau of China, the parcel delivery industry's regulator, at a news conference in August.

The development has attracted the attention of the top authorities and has been written into the nation's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25).

In July, at an executive meeting of the State Council, China's Cabinet, Premier Li Keqiang reiterated that the government will improve the delivery logistics system in rural areas.

As part of efforts to advance rural vitalization, the move aims to further facilitate the flow of agricultural produce to urban households and consumer goods to rural areas.

Since 2014, China has carried out a campaign to boost deliveries in rural areas. All county-level regions and 98 percent of towns now have access to express delivery services.

The efforts have mainly been focused on the "last mile"－that is, from townships to villages.

Last year, the bureau launched a three-year campaign to expand the network to a deeper grassroots level by sending parcels to villages.

The campaign quickly bore fruit. By the end of last year, more than 80 percent of villages had access to parcel delivery services. In East China's Yangtze River Delta region, in places such as Zhejiang province and Shanghai, the network has already been extended to all villages.

The bureau plans to extend the network to all villages nationwide by the end of this year, according to its annual conference this month.