Cainiao, Alibaba's logistics arm, launches a flight from Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, to Kuala Lumpur to transport goods sold through AliExpress, Alibaba's business-to-customer site selling to overseas markets, on March 31, 2020. [Photo by Niu Jing/for China Daily]

Recent data from the State Post Bureau showed that as of Dec 30, a total of 17.8 billion parcels were delivered by the express delivery sector in East China's Zhejiang province throughout 2020, surging 34.8 percent from the previous year.

The province's annual business volume in the sector made up roughly 22 percent of the national aggregate and 12 percent of the global aggregate.

The province's thriving express delivery business has greatly bolstered its socioeconomic development amid the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Based on the logistic support provided by express deliveries, Zhejiang's online retail sector generated more than 2.2 trillion yuan ($340.78 billion) in sales of goods in 2020, bringing in more than 290 billion yuan and 60 billion yuan in revenue respectively for the consumption goods manufacturing and agriculture sectors.

Zhejiang made significant progress in rolling out express delivery services in rural villages, factories, and cross-border transactions in 2020.

Currently, the express delivery service has been made available to 95.35 percent of the province's administrative villages and 98.6 percent of the province's industrial parks for small- and micro-enterprises. The total volume of express deliveries for Zhejiang's rural areas reached 3.6 billion parcels in 2020.

The province's annual volume for cross-border express deliveries was 369 million parcels, up 47.5 percent from the previous year.