Contemporary Logistics in China 2025 : Digitalization, E-Commerce, and a Decade of Progress through the Belt and Road Initiative

This annual report aims to present a timely portrait of the rapid growth of China's logistics market and the status quo of its logistics industry. It provides an in-depth analysis of critical issues involved in the ongoing dynamic and multi-faceted development and serves as a valuable reference resource for interested readers in the academic and professional fields.

The book starts with an in-depth overview of the achievements and prospects of China's logistics development in the ten years of the "the Belt and Road Initiative", and then covers macro-factors related to logistics technologies and facilities, region-specific policies and plans, industry-wide transformation in transport, manufacturing, commerce, and agriculture. The book also addresses the current state and challenges of logistics digitization in China and trends from the aspects of continuous promotion, upstream and downstream industry collaboration, intelligent transportation infrastructure, application of logistics big models, and government support. Furthermore, the book offers insights into the development and future prospects of China's cross-border e-commerce logistics.

The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.

Zhilun Jiao is an associate professor of the Logistics Research Center, College of Economic and Social Development (CESD), Nankai University. He has been selected for the top 2% of the world's leading scientists released by Stanford University for the years 2022 and 2023. He is also recognized as a Highly Cited Chinese Scholar by Elsevier for the years 2022-2023. His main research interests include e-commerce logistics, intelligent logistics, energy and sustainable development, business economy, and technological economy.

Xiaofan Wu is currently an Assistant Professor in College of Economic and Social Development (CESD), Nankai University. Her teaching and research areas are international shipping, maritime economies, and logistics and supply chain management. She has published papers in journals such as Computers & Operations Research, Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, International Journal of Product Research etc..

Jianhua Xiao is the Director of the Logistics Research Center and a Professor at the College of Economic and Social Development (CESD), Nankai University. His research focuses on logistics system optimization and bio-inspired algorithms, especially on the optimization of large-scale urban logistics using data-driven approaches. He has published twenty books and approximately fifty papers in SCI-indexed journals.

Binglian Liu is Distinguished Professor at Nankai University. He serves as the Dean of the College of Economic and Social Development since 2012, Dean of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Province Collaborative Development Research Institute since 2017, Executive Vice President of the Hainan Research Institute since 2019. His research focuses on regional industry analysis, regional logistics planning, and regional policy. He published 31 books and 134 academic journal papers with regard to regional industry analysis and regional logistics. He presided over 4 research projects of national significance, 74 research projections commissioned by national ministries, and a significant amount of consulting projects sponsored by 107 local governments and 44 private enterprises.

Na Li is a currently an Assistant Professor in College of Economic and Social Development (CESD), Nankai University. Her research interests are sustainable supply chain management, corporate social responsibility, platform economy and intelligent logistics. She has published several papers in international famous journals, such as Production and Operations Management, International Journal of Production Economics, Annals of Operations Research, Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review etc.. 

Yu Gong is an Associate Professor of Operations Management and Director of CORMSIS Business Liaison (China) at Southampton Business School, University of Southampton, UK. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Exeter and has published in high-impact journals such as the International Journal of Operations & Production Management (IJOPM), International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Production Research (IJPR), and Business Strategy and the Environment. He has served as a guest editor for both IJOPM and IJPR. His research focuses on sustainable supply chain management and supply chain innovation.