Beijing, November 2 (Xinhua) -- Ren Haoxiang, Vice President of the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing and President of the China Logistics Society, stated in Beijing on November 2 that China's economy is continuing to recover and improve, with increased growth momentum. The Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for the manufacturing industry in September was 50.2%, returning to the expansion range for the first time in five months. Driven by the recovery of demand, the operation of modern logistics in China is stabilizing and improving.

On the 2nd, the "Beijing Institute of Materials Science and Technology Logistics Education 30th Anniversary 2024 Logistics and Supply Chain International Academic Conference" was held, hosted by Beijing Institute of Materials Science and Technology and organized by the School of Logistics of Beijing Institute of Materials Science and Technology. Ren Haoxiang stated at the meeting that the Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to the development of the logistics industry and modern supply chain. Logistics has become a strategic, fundamental, and leading industry supporting the development of the national economy, and supply chain innovation and application have been elevated to a national strategy.

Ren Haoxiang said that driven by the recovery of demand, the operation of modern logistics in China is stabilizing and improving. Data shows that the total amount of social logistics in China in the first three quarters of 2024 was 258.2 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.6% at comparable prices, higher than the GDP growth rate in the first half of the year; The total cost of social logistics was 13.4 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.3%. The ratio of total social logistics costs to GDP was 14.1%, a decrease of 0.1 percentage points from the first half of the year and a decrease of 0.2 percentage points from the same period last year.

He also proposed to attach great importance to the role of artificial intelligence in scientific research. Artificial intelligence driven scientific research has become a new engine for technological development. The latest data shows that China has the highest number of papers published in the field of artificial intelligence driven scientific research, and is actively promoting the development of artificial intelligence driven scientific research worldwide.

Zuo Min, Dean of Beijing Institute of Materials Science and Technology, said that since the beginning of this year, "reducing the logistics costs of the whole society" has risen to the national strategic level, and the development of modern logistics industry has attracted the attention of all sectors of society. Promoting logistics cost reduction, efficiency improvement, transformation and upgrading, and enhancing the resilience and safety level of the supply chain are both opportunities and challenges for the logistics industry.

Professor Hu Xiangpei from Dalian University of Technology believes that as a major e-commerce country, it is of great significance to achieve the transformation from "people arriving" to "goods to people" in the process of goods picking. He analyzed and compared the advantages and disadvantages of the two picking methods, focusing on optimizing research from the aspects of goods allocation in the mobile shelf picking system, order picking in the robot mobile shelf system, and robot scheduling in the robot mobile shelf system.

The theme of this conference is "Sustainable Development of Logistics and Supply Chain under New Quality Productivity", focusing on the background of globalization and exploring how to build a more flexible and responsive supply chain system to cope with changes in the international market and constantly upgrading consumer demands.