Mountainous county in E China's Jiangxi thrives thanks to smart logistics

Anyuan county of Ganzhou city, east China's Jiangxi Province, once deficient in transport infrastructure, now has a better transport network and a smart logistics system, embracing a robust economy.

Located in a mountainous area, Anyuan county used to be the only county in the province that had no access to railway and expressway services. Since China's Ministry of Transport (MOT) started to offer paired assistance in 2013, the county has built an expressway network that stretches north to Nanchang, capital of Jiangxi, southwards to Guangdong Province, eastwards to Fujian Province and westwards to Hunan Province. Eighteen towns in the county are connected by expressways, and the roads of 152 villages have been upgraded.

Photo shows goods transported by the cableway. (Photo/youth.cn)

“It took at least three days for me to deliver a box of oranges, a local specialty, to neighboring provinces in the past. Now, the delivery time has been reduced to less than 24 hours,” said Cai Yongqin from Youcai village, Anyuan county. Cai, who runs a successful online business for agricultural products, including honey, sweet potatoes and oranges, added that the cost of delivery has dropped dramatically.

In addition, the county fostered a modern logistics system supported by 5G, the Internet, and AI in rural areas. One of the key projects includes a smart transportation program that features a cableway and intelligent cable cars, allowing for the 24-hour transportation of goods among different stations distributed in a rural logistics network at the county, township and village levels.

When villagers want to send some items, they just need to put them into the intelligent cable cars, which will then travel along the cables to deliver the items to a final destination. “Small as it is, it has a capacity for loading nearly 100 kilograms of goods, making delivery much more convenient,” remarked Guo Aijin, a local villager in Hezi town as he put some homemade honey into a cable car and closed its door. At once, the cable car began to ascend slowly and traveled onwards to the next station.

The smart transportation program has a town-level branch warehouse, four village-level stations, and a 10-kilometer low-altitude cableway within the county, benefiting 17,000 people living in the town. Thanks to the new logistics network, the cost for transporting 100-kilogram goods to destinations 100 kilometers away was reduced to as much as 5 yuan (about $0.78), more than half the amount compared to conventional ways of transporting goods, according to Guo Jianming, a worker at a station in Hezi town.

Moreover, the county established a digital platform, which enables villagers to share information on the production, supply and sale of their agricultural products, as well as providing a means to sell and purchase farm produce, said Guo. Statistics show that an average of over 300 orders are placed on the platform every day. In less than five months since the inception of the platform, the transaction volume exceeded 1 million yuan.