The volume of post and express delivery parcels and packages handled by Jinhua city – located in East China's Zhejiang province – in the year to date has topped 10 billion pieces. 

That performance, as of Nov 12, made it the first city in China to reach that level, according to the latest statistics released by the State Post Bureau.

Jinhua's 10 billionth express item was made on the morning of Nov 12. This was an international express item going from Yiwu, a county-level city administered by Jinhua, to Russia. 

With the rapid development of the network economy and e-commerce, the scale of express deliveries in Jinhua has grown from 170 million items in 2012 to 10 billion nowadays, with the volume of the express delivery business increasing nearly 70 times, said Zhang Qiang, director of the Jinhua Postal Administration. 

"Currently, the scale of the Jinhua express business accounts for one tenth of the country's and half of the province's," said an official from the Zhejiang Provincial Postal Administration. 

"The city has more than 300 corporate enterprises, more than 1,000 business outlets and more than 30,000 employees in the industry," the official said. 

He added that the average duration for express deliveries has decreased from 3-4 days to just 48 hours in major cities nationwide, while next-day deliveries have been achieved in the Yangtze River Delta region.