At the end of July 2026, in the Yiwu International Logistics Park, a multimodal transport train loaded with cross-border e-commerce packages and outdoor tourism equipment completed its final sealing and slowly departed from the park's railway dedicated line. On the intelligent dispatch screen of the park, the real-time running trajectory of new multimodal transportation routes across the country is jumping. The national logistics industry prosperity index for the month is fixed at 50.4%, which has steadily maintained the expansion range with slight fluctuations. The entire logistics industry is steadily moving forward with the pace of policy implementation.

Structural highlights of business differentiation

In July, logistics operations showed a slight fluctuation but overall expansion, with the total index of railway, highway, and postal express delivery services maintaining expansion, and the total index of multimodal transport services reaching 54%, a 0.5 percentage point increase from the previous month, and in a high prosperity range. Multiple regions across the country have successively opened up new intermodal transportation routes, explored new operational models, and implemented new supporting solutions, achieving new breakthroughs in the field of multimodal transportation.

From a regional perspective, the total logistics business index in the eastern, central, and western regions has fallen by 0.2, 0.1, and 0.3 percentage points respectively, maintaining a stable overall operating trend. The performance of the industrial logistics sector is impressive, with steady growth in areas such as transportation equipment, communication electronics, electrical machinery, and smart home appliances, directly driving synchronous growth in railway white goods and highway vehicle business volume. From January to July 2026, the national multimodal freight volume increased by 18.7% year-on-year, and the structural growth momentum continued to be released.

Policy support, consolidation and improvement foundation

Since mid to late July, policy signals in the logistics sector have continued to be released, and the country has issued a special plan for the consumer sector, which puts forward higher requirements for boosting consumer logistics demand and innovating logistics integration scenarios. At the end of the month, the Central Political Bureau meeting and the State Council executive meeting promoted the six network plan, accelerated the construction of the logistics network, focused on filling gaps, improving connectivity, and enhancing capabilities, providing strong support for the subsequent improvement of the logistics market.

The summer consumption scene continues to heat up, and various regions are working together to create immersive experiential consumption scenes for business travel and entertainment, driving cross regional passenger flow, commercial flow, and logistics activity. Logistics orders for outdoor tourism, local specialties, and fresh products have significantly rebounded month on month.

The new order index reached 50.5%, with a month on month increase of 0.2 percentage points, marking the fifth consecutive month of recovery this year. The new order index in the eastern region rebounded by 0.4 percentage points, while the new order index in the central and western regions both rebounded by 0.1 percentage points. New orders in the railway, road, and multimodal transport sectors increased synchronously, and the inventory turnover index in the multimodal transport sector rebounded by 0.5 percentage points month on month, indicating a continuous improvement in intermodal efficiency.

At present, both the index of completed fixed assets investment and the index of employees remain above 50%, and the expected index of business activities is 52.8%. The investment, employees and market expectations are still in the expansion range.

Affected by seasonal factors such as high temperatures and heavy rainfall, as well as slowing demand for bulk energy transportation, the logistics industry will still face certain operational pressures in August. With the gradual implementation of various logistics network construction plans, the subsequent logistics industry prosperity index is expected to maintain stable operation in the expansion range, providing solid logistics support for the real economy cycle.Editor/Cheng Liting