This Day, That Year

On Aug 23, 1999, the 22nd Universal Postal Union Congress was held in Beijing.

The item from China Daily showed the then-president Jiang Zemin (second from right) attending the opening ceremony of the congress at the Great Hall of the People.

Since then, China’s relationship with the UPU has

This year marks the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening-up policy.

been furthered, and bilateral exchanges and cooperation have been enlarged.

In 2005, Huang Guozhong became deputy director of the UPU.

He was reelected for a second term in 2008.

The country has played an important role in the global postal system.

The newspaper and beyond

Backed by a boom in e-commerce, China’s express delivery market revenue reached 275 billion yuan ($40 billion) between January and June, with year-onyear growth of almost 26 percent, according to the State Post Bureau.

More than 22 billion parcels were delivered in the first half of this year.

To meet the surging demand for express services, SF Express, the country’s largest private express logis- tics company, based in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, is building a cargo air hub in Ezhou, Hubei province, according to the country’s Civil Aviation Administration.

The freight airport is estimated to have the potential to serve SF Express in China the way Memphis serves global courier giant FedEx in the United States.

SF Express has 45 cargo aircraft. The company aims to own 100 aircraft by 2020.