Auto & Transportation

Recently, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing released the situation of China's logistics industry in the first five months of this year.

From January to May, the national economy continued to recover. In this context, the growth of logistics demand was stable, and the momentum of emerging kinetic energy development was good, supporting the continuous and stable recovery of logistics demand. The scale of the logistics market is growing strongly, logistics activities remain active, the industry’s prosperity level continues to be high, and the overall operation trend remains stable and positive.

The market scale continues to grow, and the supply of logistics services is good

The growth of logistics demand is steady, and the emerging momentum is further strengthened. From January to May, the total social logistics volume nationwide was 121.2 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.5% at comparable prices, and the growth rate was 2.5 percentage points lower than that from January to April. Affected by the increase in the base in the same period last year, the year-on-year growth rate of total social logistics has continued to decline since the first quarter, but this is still a normal trend, which does not mean that the growth momentum of logistics demand has weakened. Based on the two-year data, the total social logistics has grown at an average annual rate of 7.2%, which is still higher than the level of the same period in 2019 (a year-on-year increase of 6.1% in the first five months of 2019).

From the perspective of the total social logistics structure, industrial product logistics has grown steadily, and the growth rate has slowed slightly compared with the previous period; import logistics demand has maintained a steady and rapid growth; logistics demand related to people's livelihood consumption has maintained rapid growth, which has a significant role in the recovery of total logistics.

The logistics of industrial products has grown steadily. From January to May, the total amount of industrial product logistics increased by 17.8% over the previous year, and the growth rate was 2.5 percentage points lower than that from January to April. The two-year average growth rate was 7.0%. In general, the demand for industrial logistics maintained steady growth, but the growth momentum slowed slightly.

From the perspective of the total structure of industrial logistics, emerging momentum continues to grow, and high technology and consumption continue to drive the recovery of industrial logistics demand. One is that the growth of high-tech manufacturing has accelerated significantly. In May, the demand for high-tech manufacturing logistics increased by 17.5% year-on-year, and the two-year average growth rate was 13.1%. The growth rate was 4.8% and 1.5% faster than the previous month, which was 8.7 and 6.5% higher than that of the industry. The second is the continuous acceleration of the growth rate of the consumer goods industry. In May, the demand for consumer goods manufacturing logistics increased by 9.7% year-on-year, and the two-year average growth rate was 4.4%. The growth rate was 2.1 and 0.3 percentage points faster than the previous month.

The growth rate of import logistics is steady but slowing down. Although the domestic epidemic has experienced partial recurrences, domestic demand has generally maintained a steady growth trend, and the demand for imported logistics has continued to maintain a steady growth, and the growth rate has slowed down compared with the previous period. From January to May, the import volume increased by 6.1% year-on-year, and the growth rate was 0.4 percentage points lower than that from January to April.

From the perspective of different types of goods, the import demand for major commodities remained high, with the year-on-year growth rates of iron ore, crude oil, and natural gas imports being 6%, 2.3%, and 24.5% respectively from January to May. In terms of agricultural products, the growth rate of import demand for grain and meat continued to increase, with cumulative year-on-year growth of 50.6% and 12.6% respectively.

The total logistics volume of units and residents maintained rapid growth. From January to May, the total logistics of units and residents' goods related to people's livelihood consumption increased by 18.9% year-on-year, and fell below 20% for the first time in the year, but still maintained rapid growth. Among them, online shopping maintained rapid growth, and the national online retail sales of physical goods increased by 19.9% year-on-year.

The supply of logistics services is good, and the market scale continues to grow. From January to May, the total revenue of the logistics industry reached 4.6 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 31.4%, a decrease of 2.9 percentage points from January to April. On the whole, the two-year average annual growth rate is 11.2%, and the average annual growth rate remains at a relatively high level, indicating that the recovery momentum of the logistics market is still strong.

The logistics industry's boom is high and the company's benefits are improved

The logistics boom is at a high level and the trend remains stable.

In May, although the logistics industry prosperity index fell back, it was still at a high level, reflecting that logistics business activities continued to remain active and the industry as a whole was stable and improving, but the growth trend was slightly stable compared to the previous period. Main features of this month--

Both logistics supply and demand have callbacks. In May, the business volume index was 55.8%, a decrease of 1.5 percentage points from the previous month; the new order index was 54.5%, a decrease of 1.6 percentage points from the previous month. It shows that the pace of demand expansion in the logistics market has slowed down, the scale of business has shrunk, and the number of orders has decreased.

Inventory levels have fallen, and logistics turnover efficiency has improved. In May, the average inventory index dropped by 2.7 percentage points. Although the inventory turnover index dropped simultaneously, it remained at a relatively high level of 52%.

Industrial data show that the growth of finished goods inventory is slowing down. At the end of April, the inventory of finished products of industrial enterprises above designated size dropped for two consecutive months. The number of finished product inventory turnover days has continued to decrease this year, with a decrease of 0.4 days at the end of April compared with the end of March, a year-on-year decrease of 3.8 days.

Balanced growth of enterprises of different sizes. From the perspective of enterprise scale, the business activities of large, medium and small logistics enterprises have remained in the expansion range, reflecting that logistics enterprises have maintained growth momentum and market development has become more balanced.

Logistics service prices fluctuated at high levels. The price of logistics services has slowed down compared with the previous period, and is still at a relatively high level compared with the same period in history.

From the perspective of different modes of transportation, the marine market demand has grown steadily, the supply of transportation capacity has been basically stable, and the freight rate has rebounded slightly from the previous month. From January to May, the average value of China's coastal bulk freight index was 1,259.50 points, an increase of 30.3% over the same period last year; the average of China’s export container freight index was 1987.22 points, an increase of 122.5% over the same period last year. Supply and demand in the highway market were stable, and the price index was basically the same. From January to May, China's highway logistics freight index averaged 99.97%, an increase of 1.9% over the same period last year.

The efficiency of logistics enterprises continued to improve. Driven by the recovery of market demand and rapid growth in operating income, logistics companies have focused on cost control and further improved their benefits. Key survey data show that from January to April, the company's logistics business revenue increased by 44.9% year-on-year, and the logistics business cost increased by 42.7% year-on-year. The growth rate of logistics business costs was 2.2 percentage points lower than revenue.

The profit margin rebounded to more than 4%, an increase of 1.2 percentage points over the same period of last year, and an increase of 0.4 percentage points over the first quarter, showing that the efficiency of logistics enterprises has improved compared with the same period and the previous period.

It is expected to maintain a stable and fast operation. The business pressure is still relatively high.

On the whole, logistics operations showed a steady recovery from January to May. The expansion of logistics demand and supply scale has slowed down, but the quality and efficiency of logistics operations have steadily recovered. However, it should also be noted that the foreign epidemic situation and the international environment are still complicated, and the foundation for the stable recovery of demand in some areas is not yet solid. The improvement of logistics enterprise benefits is not yet balanced, and fluctuations in the recovery process of small enterprises have appeared. Coupled with the high prices of raw materials and labor costs, the pressure on business operations is still relatively high.

From the perspective of future trends, with the increase of the base in the same period last year and the approach of summer logistics off-season and other factors, the year-on-year growth rate of logistics-related data in June and July may further decline. However, from the index point of view, the business activity expectation index still maintains a relatively high level of 60.8%, indicating that logistics companies are optimistic about the continued recovery of the market in the future, and logistics is expected to maintain a stable and rapid operation. The growth rate of total social logistics in the first half of the year remains at Around 15%.