Gou Meilun is a channel management clerk in the Parcel, Express and Logistics Business Unit of Chongqing Postal Branch.

As the project manager of the international railway mail transport via the China-Europe Railway Express, which is part of the grand blueprint of the Belt and Road Initiative, Gou Meilun has led her team to develop a standardized process for regular mail transportation by international freight trains.

A considerable number of “fragmented” dispatches are shipped from China to other parts of the world each year, and the China-Europe Railway Express stands out with its advantages of “less expensive than air transport but much faster than sea transport”. Gou Meilun, together with her team members, persevered in their attempts to promote the tests of the outbound and inbound mail transportation by the China-Europe freight trains, aiming to find a new approach that not only aligns with international practices but also addresses the challenges of large-scale mail transportation. With the joint efforts of the railway, Customs, and postal authorities, the Organization for Co-operation Between Railways (OSJD) has lifted its decades-old ban on transporting mail via international railway freight intermodal transport. In 2018, the first inbound mail transportation test container of the China-Europe Railway Express (Yuxinou) arrived at the mail center in Chongqing Tuanjiecun Railway Port from the mail center in Frankfurt, Germany, marking the first successful two-way transportation of international mail via the China-Europe Railway Express.

From 2022 to 2023, the China-Europe Railway Express mail transportation project of Chongqing Postal Branch was successfully selected by the Ministry of Commerce as one of the best practice cases in the comprehensive trials and demonstrations for expanding opening up of the service sector, and was included in the fourth batch of best practice cases in the pilot program to promote the innovative development of trade in services by the Office of the Inter-Ministry Joint Conference on Development of Trade in Services under the State Council. Based on the “Chongqing model”, Gou Meilun and his colleagues have developed a standardized process for mail transportation via China-Europe Railway Express, the International Railway Mail Transportation Processing Guidelines. Currently, under this set of guidelines, a total of 11 postal gateways including Wuhan and Chengdu have jointly turned the project of international railway mail transportation via China-Europe Railway Express into a shining business card of China Post in its implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative. The team of “new postmen” swells on the Belt and Road.