Unified domestic market is the world's delight

Zhao Xiande, professor of supply chain management at China Europe International Business School, said the efforts to build a unified domestic market can improve the operational efficiency of China's industrial and supply chains, promote industrial upgrade on the supply side and improve the experience of consumers on the demand side, thereby ensuring smooth "internal circulation".

The improvement of the domestic industrial and supply chains will also improve the global competitiveness of Chinese products, and the unified domestic market will also win the favor of more overseas companies, thus ensuring smooth "external circulation", Zhao said.

According to him, a unified domestic market will break down barriers, create conditions within the logistics industry across different regions and different transportation modes, and between logistics and other industries, which can help ensure smooth logistics in both normal and extraordinary conditions.

The recent resurgent cases of COVID-19 in Shanghai, for instance, have disrupted logistics to some extent, which highlights the need to build a unified domestic market with a logistics sector that is highly unified and standardized, Zhao said.

To safeguard the stability of industrial and supply chains, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the nation's top industry regulator, had announced a string of measures to overcome bottlenecks in industrial production and logistics.

Xin Guobin, vice-minister of industry and information technology, said the ministry has helped key companies resume work, and most of the enterprises engaged in the four areas, to wit: medical supplies for epidemic prevention, necessities of people's livelihood, important agricultural materials, and strategic emerging sectors such as automobiles and semiconductors.

"We will go all out to ensure the smooth circulation of industrial and supply chains. That is the primary task to stabilize industrial growth," Xin said, adding that the ministry will ramp up efforts to implement policies such as reducing burdens on enterprises and helping small and medium-sized enterprises better withstand the fallout from the pandemic.

He Dengcai, vice-president of the Beijing-based China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, said industrial product logistics accounts for 90 percent of China's total logistics, and smooth operation of logistics is of high importance to maintain industrial production.

"A unified domestic market will help keep the logistics industry running smoothly across regions, which is one of the keys to ensuring the stability of industrial and supply chains in both normal and extraordinary conditions," He said.