Postal Service in China: Developments and Prospects

The year of 1990 will surely be of historic significance for China's postal service. On the eve of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the People's Republic of China and tile return of Macao to the motherland. the 22nd Congress of the Universal Postal] Union (UPU) is to be held in Beijing on August 23 in solemnity. At the last UPU gathering in this century, attendees will exchange their opinions and formulate growth strategies, which will certainly exert great impacts on the future of this industry.

As the hosts of this convention. we would like to extend our warmest welcome to our colleagues from every confer of the globe, and wish the Congress a marvelous success.

China has a long history in providing postal services. As a State institution, it originated about 3,000 years ago. As a commercial endeavor, the service could date back to over 500 years ago, and as a contemporary business it has been more than 100 years. As part of the infrastructure and the national communication facility, the postal service has always been essential in ensuring the quick diffusion of State policies and other messages, in safeguarding the national and ethnic unity. in promoting sciences and disseminating cultural information.

After the founding of the People's Republic, China's postal service, by relying on meager resources, was prompt in reviving and building a web of postal offices and routes satisfying the needs of the government departments, businesses and the general public by providing diversified services.

Since the late 70s. the Postal Service improved its 1llallagelllellt through reforms and increased investment, expanded and refined its trunk routes, and modernized its offices and facilities. We rebuilt mail-processing centers institutionalizing central bureaus, and sped up the technical upgrading and mechanization of mail handling and dispatching.

Meanwhile, we carried out the "Green Card" project, the China Postal Service Integrated Computer Network construction, and other programs by enlisting new and high technologies. In addition to traditional services. provide postal savings accounts services, EMS, stamp collection, business documentation and communications, electronic mail, postal gift products, and all varieties of agency businesses.

Thanks to the in the past two decades, there has if a modernized postal network in China, covering the whole country and linking up with the world. The postal web of services has become one of the important carriers of information, commodities, and financial instruments. The scale, the technological contents, and the overall quality of the services have all registered an exponential growth and betterment.

Along the nationwide reform, China Post has been undergoing a series of restructuring in its administration and operation procedures. All important structural] shift occurred in 1998 when the State Post Bureau was established, announcing the separation of the postal service from the telecommunication segment. This split exhibited the value that the Central Government recognized in the postal service as all independent player. An independent entity will be in line with the general trends ill the world's postal industry, and better accommodate the realities in the workplace, making it more possible for the Service to generate business and more efficient services as a public utility operator.

The new century comes with both opportunities and challenges, promising gloater growth for China's postal services. The industry will have deeper retinas and faster development, leading the formation of a network that will be most reasonably distributed, technically sophisticated, and scientifically administrated. More years at construction will result in a modernized postal network of fast delivery, high mechanization and automation with electronics and more diversified services.

Amid the economic technological globalization tenor, we will stick to the reform and opening policies of the Communist Party and the Government, and continue to import successful expertise and know-how from other countries in the postal and telecommunication sectors. Through more technological exchange and friendly cooperation programs, we will strive to elevate the social benefits of our services. And we will try to increase the economic returns of the postal business by diversifying our services to meet the multiple needs tile community.

We will generate and develop more postal businesses, and aim at greater profitability through better management. We will introduce more structural readjustments in tapping and optimizing the potentials of the integrated capacities in the existing networks. And we will train more qualified staff to ensure the smooth executions of all our objectives. The entire staff of the postal service will be united as one, work hard and do our bit to bring about our designated goals the healthy development of tile world's as well as the Chinese postal services.

Liu Liqing
Director-General
the State Post Bureau
June,1999

In April, 1998, China State Post Bureau was set up

In 1998, Each service scored a rapid development:
Letter: volume (billion pieces) 6.604674;operating revenue (billion yuan) 3.4
Parcel: volume (billion pieces) 0.097469; operating revenue (billion yuan) l.35
EMS: operating revenue 3.12 (billion yuan)
Newspapers & Periodicals service: operating revenue (billion yuan) 4.04
Confidential service: operating revenue (billion yuan) 0. 16
Postal savings: operating revenue (billion guan) 7.09
Philately： operating revenue (billion yuan) 7.79