Lu’an Postal Branch in Anhui province has explored and worked out a “1 plus 3 plus N” integrated operation model to facilitate rural revitalization.

The model “1 plus 3 plus N” is an integrated comprehensive service system, in which “1” refers to one comprehensive operation center; “3” refers to three major systems of agricultural product sales, rural delivery and logistics and rural inclusive financial services; and “N” refers to numerous implementation measures of the above three systems. The agricultural product sales system includes agricultural product incubation, offline exhibition and sales halls, Ule specialty shopping malls on the online ecommerce platform ule.com, livestreaming bases, etc. The rural delivery and logistics system includes the three-tier logistics system at village, township and county levels, the integration of warehousing and distribution, the integration of passenger, freight and mail transportation, and the cooperation between postal and express companies. The rural inclusive financial service system includes the development of rural credit system, rural revitalization debit cards, and rural revitalization studios, etc.

Firstly, Lu’an Postal Branch has established an agricultural product sales system to help overcome the difficulties in sales. It has cultivated two corporate-level and nine regional-level agricultural product bases, and built five Ule rural revitalization shopping malls on ule.com. Relying on 179 postal outlets and 2150 ULE E-commerce stations offline, as well as the rural revitalization post offices and Ule agricultural product experience halls jointly built with the local authorities of agriculture and rural affairs and local authorities of commerce, it has established an integrated system of production, supply and sales by building agricultural product bases, carrying out operations and expanding channels, and accurately facilitated the sales of Anhui products across the country. Secondly, Lu’an Postal Branch has deepened the inclusive financial service system in rural areas to help overcome the difficulties in financing. With postal and banking business cooperation focusing on the five customer groups of administrative villages, farmers’ cooperatives, family farms, agricultural enterprises and rural supermarkets, it has integrated channels, customers and product resources, set up 78 rural revitalization studios, and carried out the holistic village development activities. It reinforced the efforts of building up county strength through China Post’s initiative of developing rural industries to benefit agriculture and farmers, issued rural revitalization debit cards, and enhanced the depth and breadth of services for agriculture, rural areas and farmers. Finally, Lu’an Postal Branch has strengthened the rural delivery and logistics system to help overcome the difficulties in logistics. It has built a total of five mail processing centers, 59 town-level cooperative distribution centers and 2150 village-level stations, and constructed a county-level cooperative distribution system for parcel, express and logistics business in Jinzhai county. Lu’an Postal Branch has launched 33 cooperative lines to transport express items via the combination of postal vans and rural passenger buses, and settled its postal outlets in 59 transport service stations at townships. It has signed cooperation agreements with six private express companies in the city, with postal-express cooperation in last-mile delivery covering 96.53 percent of the administrative villages.

In particular practices, Lu’an Postal Branch relied on the project of the cold chain distribution center in Changji town of Huoqiu county, and promoted the pilot cold chain logistics for green and high-end agricultural products in northern Anhui province in accordance with the operation mode of cold chain logistics system that government constructs and postal enterprises operate. Several private express companies have decided to cooperate with Lu’an Postal Branch in cooperative distribution, which is expected to generate a daily inbound and outbound volume of 120000 shipments. It has reached cooperation intentions on its multi-stage refrigeration system with 22 companies, whose rental volume is estimated to be 11000 pallets.