Deliveries in Xizang are now faster and cheaper

Seeing high courier delivery charges — and sometimes no shipping options at all — when shopping online has long troubled people in the Xizang autonomous region, especially those in rural communities. As a deputy to the 14th National People's Congress, Norbu Yangzom proposed a solution.

The deputy from Metog county in Nyingchi, Xizang, said she believed the issue greatly affects people's daily lives and their sense of happiness. To remedy this, she submitted a suggestion during the annual session of the 14th NPC last year. Soon afterward, her proposal led to the introduction of a series of policies and concrete actions aimed at improving the situation.

"Within a month, I got a reply from the State Post Bureau saying that, in consultation with the Ministry of Finance, the State Taxation Administration and the Ministry of Commerce, joint actions would be carried out to promote the high-quality development of the logistics and delivery industry in Xizang," she said.

Previously, only postal services could reach rural and pastoral areas in Xizang due to the region's remote location and its vast, sparsely populated landscape, combined with relatively underdeveloped logistics infrastructure. For other courier services, residents had to travel to the county seat to pick up their parcels, which was particularly inconvenient, Norbu Yangzom said.

"Delivery times were also relatively long. Very often, people would see delivery fees to Xizang costing tens of yuan. Many items were even marked with a shipping fee of 999 yuan, which essentially meant the online shops wouldn't ship," she said. "Updating logistics infrastructure and reducing logistics costs have become common aspirations for people of all ethnic groups in the region."

The first move to address the issue occurred during a meeting on May 25 to discuss the construction of a logistics and delivery system for agricultural and pastoral areas in Xizang, she said. During the meeting, relevant departments and enterprises held open and candid discussions on accelerating the development of a smooth delivery network for these areas, taking into account not only economic factors but also people's livelihoods and public needs.

By August, the regional government introduced a subsidy mechanism for parcel delivery services in farming and herding communities.

"Very quickly, people, including me, saw a significant drop in delivery fees," she said. "A logistics service station was also set up in my village, which means villagers no longer need to go to the county seat to pick up their parcels."

Lhakpa, an official with the regional postal administration's market supervision department, said in February that more than 2,400 village-level postal and logistics service stations had been upgraded or transformed across Xizang. The expanded network now allows farmers and herders to access postal services within their own villages, offering service levels comparable to those in urban areas.

The number of online products eligible for free shipping to Xizang has also risen to nearly 1.7 billion items, up 119 percent year-on-year, Lhakpa said.

Delivery efficiency has improved noticeably as well, Norbu Yangzom said.

"In the past, goods shipped to my village from Southeast China took at least three weeks to arrive. Last year, the average time was cut to about 10 days, and it's getting faster," she said.

She then pulled out her cellphone to look up an order of green beans she had placed on an e-commerce platform for her family on March 3. Dispatched from Guangdong province in South China, the order arrived in her village in Metog — long known as the "isolated island" of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau because of its challenging terrain — in just four days.

Until 2013, when a national road was completed, Metog was the last county in China without road access.

"The speedy delivery is even a surprise for me — but a very good one," she said. "Meanwhile, improved postal and logistics services have also made it easier for villagers to sell local specialties, boosting their incomes."

According to a regional government report, Xizang plans to upgrade and renovate 60 county-level logistics and delivery centers and 4,000 village-level service stations this year, further expanding the coverage of the "Free Shipping to Xizang" service.

cuijia@chinadaily.com.cn