Since the beginning of this year, the global climate has experienced extremely abnormal short-term temperature differences, with record breaking cold waves, heatwaves, storms, and other frequent occurrences. Extreme weather has a direct impact on the production and supply of agricultural products. To adapt and mitigate the negative impact of extreme weather on our lives through artificial means, efficient storage and transportation are necessary measures, especially in the current summer when high temperatures require a large amount of cold storage and cold chain logistics to store and transport food.
On July 9th, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Implementation Plan for the Construction of National Logistics Hub Network (2021-2025)", which clearly pointed out that high-quality promotion of the construction of national logistics hubs during the 14th Five Year Plan period will promote the formation of a backbone logistics infrastructure network and backbone multimodal transportation system with national logistics hubs as the core, and support the construction of a new development pattern with domestic circulation as the main body and domestic and international dual circulation promoting each other.
Fresh consumption promotes further growth of cold chain logistics
With the improvement of people's living standards and consumption awareness, there is an increasing demand for fresh vegetables and ingredients. This is because the shelf life of products at room temperature is longer, and people's thinking patterns equate the shelf life of products at room temperature with a larger anti-corrosion dose.
Research data shows that the frequency of online fresh food purchases is positively correlated with household income. With the increase of monthly household income, the frequency of users purchasing fresh food online is also constantly increasing. Among users with a monthly household income exceeding 30000 yuan, 36.8% of them purchase fresh food online four times or more per week.
Meanwhile, according to data from Euromonitor, the total domestic fresh retail market reached 4.98 trillion yuan in 2019, a year-on-year increase of 5%. In 2020, the market size exceeded 5 trillion yuan, and the compound annual growth rate from 2014 to 2020 was 4.6%, showing a steady growth trend.
According to public data from the Cold Chain Committee of IoT, the continuous improvement of living standards is particularly evident in the growth of import and export food consumption demand: in 2019, the global food trade value exceeded 1.8 trillion US dollars, of which the trade value of the Chinese food trade market reached 862.9 billion US dollars. Meanwhile, the total value of China's foreign trade imports and exports for the year was 31.54 trillion yuan, of which exports amounted to 17.2 trillion yuan and imports amounted to 14.3 trillion yuan, both reaching historical highs. It is the development of the global food trade market that has injected new vitality into cross-border cold chain logistics.
The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 has enabled online fresh food to gain a higher market share. With the continuous increase of national policy support, this field has once again become the highland that e-commerce, logistics enterprises and other cross-border companies want to seize. Although the consumption of international cold chain ingredients may be affected by the epidemic in the short term, the growth trend is irreversible in the long run.
Logistics hub connects international and domestic dual circulation
For the domestic circulation, the overall goal of the cold chain logistics industry is to revitalize the domestic cold chain market, narrow the urban-rural gap, and ensure equal distribution of rain and dew. To serve various domestic cold chain formats at a lower price and truly safeguard food safety, combined with the national cold chain logistics backbone base and rural revitalization strategy plan, we aim to achieve a cold chain layout of cities surrounding rural areas and from trunk lines to grids, so that more people can benefit from the benefits of cold chain logistics.
At the same time, it is necessary to improve the comprehensive transportation system of domestic cold chain logistics, gradually lay out sea, land, and air cold chain transportation models, achieve multimodal transportation, and provide more options for the storage and transportation of cold chain ingredients. Only in this way can urban seafood and frozen products enter thousands of households, fresh fruits and vegetables from rural areas enter every corner of the city, achieve urban-rural connectivity, and create more new demands. The urban-rural connectivity of cold chain logistics, It will definitely become a new growth point for the internal circulation of China's cold chain logistics industry, and also an important node to truly support the construction of the domestic circulation system in the cold chain industry.
In recent years, various regions across the country have built cold chain product trading centers, which is a strong evidence to support the dual circulation of domestic and international cold chain products. There are also more and more cold chain projects named after "International Cold Chain Product Trading Centers" in various regions. The construction of these cold chain projects will comprehensively and deeply integrate into the new development pattern of "dual circulation" in the local area, accelerate the development of modern service industries such as logistics and supply chain, and create a new model of industry city integration, Building new engines and driving forces for economic development is of great significance.
More and more cold chain logistics projects are targeting the international market, integrating overseas supply chains to ensure the effective supply of Chinese cold chain food on a global scale, as well as integrating domestic supply chains to ensure and enhance the market order and health safety of Chinese cold chain food, effectively empowering all enterprises in the industry from upstream.
The construction of a domestic and international dual circulation system is a planning strategy that all industries in society need to adapt to. The circulation role of logistics in the entire socio-economic structure cannot be underestimated, especially in the cold chain logistics that is related to national economy and people's livelihood.
At the same time, we also need to clearly recognize that we emphasize the domestic circulation as the main focus, and it is absolutely not complacent. The new development pattern is not a closed domestic circulation, but an open domestic and international dual circulation. International economic connectivity and exchanges remain an objective requirement for the development of the world economy. At present, the world is in a highly precise complex of operations, and fragmentation is impossible to talk about, and we have never wavered in our determination to open up.
From the perspective of national strategic planning, the construction of a free trade pilot zone is a strategic measure taken by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council to comprehensively deepen reform and expand opening up under the new situation. Since the establishment of the Shanghai Free Trade Pilot Zone in 2013, China's free trade pilot zone has expanded to 21 provinces, forming a strategic framework from coastal to central and then to western regions, orderly distributed in East China, South China, North China, Central China, Northeast, and Southwest regions, We have basically achieved full coverage of free trade pilot zones in coastal provinces, forming a new matrix of opening up to the outside world from point to line and then to surface, better leveraging the economic radiation and driving force of coastal and border areas on the hinterland, and better serving the overall layout of opening up to the outside world with linkage between land and sea, and mutual assistance between east and west.
The deepening development of free trade zones has increasingly strengthened the connection between China's economy and the world economy, and the demand for international logistics is increasing, with a higher level of demand; As a key system in logistics construction, cold chain logistics has gradually shown stronger construction needs and richer development models. From the perspective of the layout of national free trade zones, this is also one of the important ways to deepen the domestic and international dual circulation in the cold chain logistics industry.
The construction and development of the free trade zone, Hainan Free Trade Port, and Xiong'an Free Trade Port will accelerate. Based on the huge consumer market demand in China, international trade in constant temperature and fresh cold chain food will rapidly expand. The construction of cold chain logistics in the free trade zone has gradually become another emerging highlight of domestic cold chain logistics construction.
Realize interoperability of cold chain products to ensure safe eating
As for the international circulation of the cold chain logistics industry, we emphasize that we should actively go out, learn from foreign advanced experience, take its essence and discard its dross for our own use, build a cold chain logistics model suitable for domestic characteristics, continue to play the "the Belt and Road" function, continue to operate China Europe trains, increase the frequency of shipment, and increase the variety of goods, especially fresh cold chain food items. At the same time, we have actively upgraded the comprehensive competitiveness and emergency response capability of shipping. In the face of the COVID-19 prevention and control, the epidemic prevention policies of major ports in China have been upgraded. While strictly disinfecting the goods involved, we have carried out large-scale and orderly screening of cold chain personnel to ensure the maximum safety coefficient of the entry channel and ensure the orderly exchange of cold chain food materials.
The saying goes that in order to resist foreign aggression, we must prioritize domestic efforts, and the cold chain industry is no exception. Only by elevating the domestic cold chain market and consumption level to a new level can China's cold chain market be recognized internationally and better provide high-quality ingredients for the international market. At the same time, the domestic cold chain supply chain will be recognized internationally.
Compared to developed countries, the domestic cold chain logistics industry has a significant gap in both foundation and experience. In terms of large and medium-sized cities, the cold chain industry is facing a transformation from quantity to quality, while in rural areas, it is facing a cognitive upgrade from scratch. This requires both internal changes in the industry and the assistance of fresh external blood, with the ultimate goal of achieving orderly planning of the cold chain supply chain and ultimately reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
Whether it is to achieve domestic circulation or international circulation, the ultimate goal of the cold chain logistics industry is to achieve interoperability of cold chain products, ensure the freshness of ingredients, ensure safe eating and use, and ensure national economy and people's livelihood. This is a response to the COVID-19 epidemic and other special periods, but also a response to the post epidemic era and the end of the epidemic. It is also the livelihood needs of the whole society and the world.
Emphasizing the dual circulation of domestic and international markets requires us to expand the domestic cold chain market, standardize and operate it in a standardized manner. At the same time, we need to have a global perspective, pay attention to the international market, and align with international standards. This means ensuring the orderly operation of the entire cold chain industry chain, making the domestic and international cold chain industry a transparent and unbounded cold chain. In short, achieving a domestic and international dual circulation of the cold chain industry will have an important and far-reaching impact on achieving higher quality, more efficient, more sustainable, and safer development of China's cold chain industry, as well as promoting the international cold chain industry chain.