Moving on with the times

The inside of a post office in downtown Beijing that is designed after sports. Photo provided to China Daily

Modernizing postal services is also aimed at helping bridge communication gaps as a result of inequalities in income and education levels in parts of the country.

International data now suggests electronic communication is spreading in China more rapidly than in many other countries.

But historically, letters exchanged per capita have been lower here as compared with developed countries in the West, linked to literacy rates.

Although it continues to deliver newspapers, commercial communication, money orders and handwritten letters to Chinese at home and abroad, China Post has witnessed a significant rise in its courier services including for parcels and express mail in the past decade, according to Bian and other officials.

A major role in the transformation is attributed to the country's e-commerce boom that has led many Chinese, even from rural areas, to make virtual purchases and expect the goods to arrive at their doorstep. China Post has seized on the opportunity, vigorously marketing its small package delivery system.

People can send up to 2 kilograms of items through this service that's available nationwide and at prices lower than express mail, the postal officials say.

Overall, Chinese companies made about 14 billion courier deliveries, topping global figures for the sector last year. In 2006, it was roughly 1 billion in China, Bian says.

The website for Universal Postal Union, a United Nations agency, based in Berne, Switzerland, shows 6.4 billion parcels alone were sent worldwide in 2013.

The world's Internet community hovered at 3 billion last year. Of which, 649 million were Chinese, the government-run China Internet Network Information Center said.