World Post Day, 9 October 2023

Statement by the Director General of the UPU International Bureau: "Together for trust: Collaborating for a safe and connected future"

Post offices serve as essential hubs for cohesive, inclusive, connected communities.

They provide access to vital communication, commercial, social, financial and digital services, and are often the only public service provider in remote regions. Throughout history, postal workers have been the friendly faces greeting people at their doorsteps every day, building trust with communities over generations.

The foundation of the Post's success as a service provider lies in the trust it has earned from people across the globe down the centuries. Today, more than five million postal employees are entrusted with a variety of essential and personal items, from messages, gifts and goods, to money and medicines.

This trust has been cultivated through a steadfast commitment to safety and security. Posts have tirelessly worked to improve the safety of roads, providing training programmes for delivery drivers, and implementing security measures to keep dangerous goods out of the supply chain, safeguarding workers and customers alike. Furthermore, during times of disasters or conflicts, Posts have extended a helping hand, organizing supplies and emergency services for those in need; often, they are the first to assist in these situations.

Posts can leverage this existing trust-based relationship to help bridge a gap facing billions: the digital divide. By connecting their expansive physical network to the digital sphere, Posts are embarking on a massive digital transformation to offer secure online services in this Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The UPU has been a dedicated partner in building a safe and connected global network that serves nearly eight billion people each day with modern and secure services, and it is a key part of this transformation.

However, close to 100,000 of the world’s 650,000 post offices lack adequate Internet infrastructure, limiting the services they can provide through digital channels. This means 100,000 communities missing out on a wide range of digital, financial and social inclusion services that these Posts could offer. We should ensure that all citizens and businesses have access to the full range of benefits offered by the digital economy. So, through its connect.post initiative, the UPU has set an ambitious target: ensuring that every post office has sufficient access to the Internet by 2030, to enhance digital inclusion of these underserved communities.

Not only does the UPU strive to ensure that all Posts have sufficient access to the Internet, it is also working to do so securely by ensuring that Posts, big and small, can access affordable, state-of-the-art tools and technologies to support e-commerce, e-government and e-finance services.

“Together for trust” is a call to action for all governments and their postal operators to support the development of a digital single postal territory to match the physical network built over centuries.

This World Post Day, I urge you to work together with the UPU to ensure that people everywhere need look no further than their local post office to find access to the digital economy. Let us work hand in hand to create a world where everyone can benefit from the secure digital and physical services that our global postal network can offer.

Happy World Post Day!

Together for Trust: Collaborating for a safe and connected future

Message from Mr. Liu Aili, Chairman of China Post Group Corporation Limited

On the occasion when the whole nation is celebrating the 74th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, we usher in the 54th World Post Day. On behalf of China Post Group, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the governments at all levels, customers, and friends from all walks of life for their long-term support. I would also like to extend my greetings to the active and retired postal staff nationwide.

As a fundamental, strategic and leading industry of the national economy, the postal sector plays an important role in facilitating equal accessibility of public services, promoting transformation of logistics, and boosting consumption upgrading. Since the beginning of this year, we have been unwaveringly implementing Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and the guiding principles of the 20th CPC National Congress, and conscientiously carrying out theoretical study programs. Focusing on driving high-quality development, we have been constantly building our core competitiveness and pushing forward the implementation of our strategic tasks, thereby making remarkable achievements. We ranked 86th on the Fortune Global 500 list this year, remaining among the top 100 for four consecutive years.

Over the year, we promoted transformation and improved quality and efficiency, achieving continuous growth in business performance. We strived to enhance universal postal service to meet relevant standards, continued to enrich its contents, and therefore pushed its level to a new height. We made great efforts to improve the time limit of parcel, express and logistics business, reduce its costs, expand its market and build its capacity, and thereby comprehensively reshaped its competitive edge. We raised PSBC’s development quality and efficiency steadily by accelerating the implementation of “5+1” strategy with a focus on technological finance, eco-finance, coordinated finance, industrial finance and green finance and maintaining risk control and compliance. As a result, PSBC has become the fifth largest state-owned bank in terms of total assets, with its asset quality leading the industry. We made it possible for China Post Securities to deepen its value growth, enhance its professional capabilities, and quicken its steps in cultivating new areas for continued growth. From January to August this year, China Post Group saw a revenue of 564.569 billion yuan (about 77.32 billion US dollars), a year-on-year increase of 8.26 percent; it generated a profit of 75.3 billion yuan (about 10.31 billion US dollars), up 8.36 percent year on year. It therefore maintains a good development momentum.

Over the year, we shouldered significant tasks, and demonstrated our responsibilities in supporting the overall development of the country. We promoted our support for rural revitalization, expanded the functions of our rural ecommerce platform, sped up constructing the three-tiered logistics system at village, township and county levels, and provided comprehensive financial service for agriculture, rural areas and farmers. Leveraging the advantages of China Post in the integrated flow of commodity, logistics, capital and information, we facilitated to address the three key difficulties of rural areas in sales, logistics and financing, integrating small rural industries into the economic flows and connecting agricultural products to the national market. We went all out to support major development strategies for regions including the Xiong’an New Area and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and increased our independent air transport capacity to the Belt and Road countries, thus playing an active role in the new development paradigm.

Over the year, we pursued the substantial results of reform and boosted development vitality. We did solid work in classified accounting and settlement, and took active and steady steps to separate the operation of universal and competitive postal services. We comprehensively deepened the six reforms of parcel, express and logistics service in the two-tier centralized management framework, land transport network, line-haul transport, mail processing center standardization, intra-city transportation, and collection and delivery network, and therefore improved the efficiency of supervision, operation and resources. We accelerated the institutional reform of PSBC’s second-level branches, strengthening their operational functions and stimulating their high-quality development vitality.

Over the year, we bolstered innovation and capabilities to accumulate development potential constantly. We quickened our steps to build a Digital Post by focusing on digital development, digital governance and digital intelligence. We fully applied digital technology to parcel, express and logistics business, enabling time limit reduction, cost cut and efficiency increase. In PSBC, we launched the new-generation personal banking core system, smart customer service with digital human and “cloud counter” service mode, achieving significant results in digital transformation. We established data of characteristic industries in rural areas, and reinforced joint building, sharing and use of major industry market and customer data, thus providing strong support for rural revitalization.

President Xi Jinping pointed out, “Only through unity, solidarity and cooperation can countries around the world write a new chapter in building a community with a shared future for mankind.” And the theme of the World Post Day this year is “Together for trust: Collaborating for a safe and connected future”. In the face of global economic integration and the surging tide of informatization, China Post, as an important part of the safe and connected global postal network, will uphold the philosophy of a community with a shared future for mankind, lay a solid foundation with high-quality development, win recognition with high-level service, enhance capabilities with high-efficiency innovation, and achieve win-win development with high-level cooperation. We will improve China Post’s brand image of delivering trust and connecting happiness, and work with all parties to promote safety and connection for a better future.

To build trust with high-quality development. Giving priority to quality and profit, we will constantly improve the quality of universal postal service and enrich its contents; push forward the reform and innovation of delivery service, standardize its management, improve quality and efficiency, and develop the “national team” of the industry; accelerate to build PSBC into a first-class large retail bank; and further promote the integrated development of rural e-commerce. With our own high-quality development, we will also work hand in hand with all parties and make greater contributions to the common development and better future.

To build trust with high-level postal services. Taking serving the domestic and international circulation as our responsibilities, we will fully leverage our capacity advantage of 120,000 mail trucks and 42 all-cargo aircraft, our channel advantages of 174 gateways worldwide, and our efficient service network integrating land and air transport, covering the whole country and reaching the rest of the world, to build a safe and connected circulation system, and effectively contribute to the economic and social development of countries and regions around the world. We will give full play to our advantages in the integrated flow of commodity, logistics, capital and information, to support rural revitalization actively. We will strive to build a rural e-commerce platform, the three-tiered logistics system and a farmer-oriented financial service system, to drive the integration of small rural industries into the economic flows, and help connect agricultural products to the national market, thereby facilitating to unblock the national and international transport artery and smooth the micro-circulation of local economy, and further satisfying people’s demands for postal services.

To build trust with high-efficiency innovation and reform. Committed to innovation-driven development, we will focus on developing into a Digital Post, and work faster to transform the growth model. We will rely on automated, intelligent and digital management as well as technology empowerment to achieve agile customer service, digital empowerment of employees and intelligent production and operations, thus accelerating to create new productivity boosters. We will strictly implement the responsibility system for workplace safety, hold fast to the bottom line of preventing systematic financial risks. We will strengthen comprehensive risk management, promote the transition to intelligent risk control, effectively prevent and defuse all risks, and strive to achieve higher quality, more efficient, more sustainable and safer development.

To build trust with high-level openness and cooperation. Adhering to the philosophy of open and shared development, we will integrate internal and external resources, consolidate bilateral and multilateral exchanges and cooperation with postal operators of different countries under the framework of the Universal Postal Union, and strengthen strategic partnership with various enterprises and organizations, to promote resource sharing, complementarity, coordination and win-win development.

All living things may grow in harmony and flourish, good causes may run together and thrive. We, China Post, will follow the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and remain true to our founding mission of serving the people. We will join hands with other Posts and strategic partners to deepen reform and innovation, accelerate high-quality development, work together for a safe and connected future, and eventually make greater contributions to advancing Chinese modernization, realizing the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation and building a community with a shared future for mankind.