Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang on Tuesday urged the country's postal firms to promote their logistics services in rural areas to better serve farmers' needs.

Zhang made the comment at a two-day conference held here to promote the experiences of Shandong Province's postal firms in providing logistics services for farmers.

Postal firms in east China's Shandong began to offer such logistics services as delivering farm produce in 2003, and has so far developed chain-store and door-to-door delivery services for farmers.

Zhang called on the country's postal firms to follow Shandong's example so as to accelerate rural services.

China's postal sector has an extensive presence, especially in the countryside. Post offices have 59,000 offices nationwide, more than 70 percent, or 42,000, in rural areas.

Liu Andong, manager of the China Postal Group, said the company's rural logistic services had maintained growth of more than 45 percent for four consecutive years.

The company has established more than 240,000 logistic service outlets for farmers in 1,740 counties of 29 provinces, covering 86 percent of the country's counties and a third of villages, said Liu.

Zhang also said more investment should be made to improve infrastructure and upgrade services, and urged postal firms to separate delivery and logistic services from traditional mail services.

(Xinhua News Agency May 27, 2009)