Interpretation of the “14th Five-Year Plan” for Cold-Chain Logistics Development

Preface: The Plan underscores its strategic significance, further cementing the pivotal role of cold-chain logistics within the broader framework of modernization. Issued as an official State Council document, it both reflects a renewed recognition of cold-chain logistics’ critical leadership across the product production and consumption value chains and supply chains, and highlights its strategic importance in shaping a new development paradigm in the new stage of development.

Recently, the state has issued the “ The “14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Cold-Chain Logistics” (hereinafter referred to as the “Plan”) marks a milestone and plays a pivotal role in accelerating the healthy and rapid development of China’s cold-chain logistics sector. Linking agricultural production at one end and consumer demand at the other, cold-chain logistics is a key component of China’s modern circulation system and a vital area for leveraging the strengths of its vast domestic market. Promoting high-quality development of cold-chain logistics helps drive consumption upgrading and expansion, facilitates agricultural transformation and increases farmers’ incomes, and serves as an important means of meeting the people’s growing aspirations for a better life and advancing common prosperity. It also holds significant importance for shaping a new development paradigm.

Judging from the issuance and content of the Plan, it further underscores the strategic importance of cold-chain logistics, refines the top-level design for the sector, clarifies development tasks and objectives, and establishes major projects to drive implementation, thereby accelerating the advancement of China’s modern cold-chain logistics system.

The Plan underscores its strategic nature, further cementing the pivotal role of cold-chain logistics within the broader framework of modernization. Issued as an official document of the State Council, it both reflects a renewed recognition of cold-chain logistics’ critical guiding function across product production and the consumption‑related industrial and supply chains, and highlights its strategic significance in forging a new development paradigm in the new stage of development. First, the Plan accentuates the strategic status and functions of cold-chain logistics. By deeply understanding the interplay between cold-chain logistics development and domestic consumption, rural issues, and agricultural concerns, the Plan adopts a holistic, strategic approach to advancing cold-chain logistics—grounded in the need to adapt to evolving principal social contradictions, to support rural revitalization and common prosperity, to expand domestic demand and strengthen the domestic market, and to ensure food safety and build a Healthy China. This approach further underscores, against the backdrop of the new era characterized by a new stage of development, the new development philosophy, and the construction of a new development paradigm, the strategic role of cold-chain logistics in achieving high‑quality alignment between the production and consumption of fresh agricultural products. Second, the Plan places supply‑side structural reform at its core, refining the pathways for cold-chain logistics development. With the aim of better reflecting its strategic position and harnessing its strategic impact, and in light of China’s national conditions and the requirements of building a modernized nation, the Plan establishes an overarching framework centered on optimizing supply and matching demand. In designing key tasks spanning the layout, operation, services, regulation, and safeguards of cold-chain logistics, it comprehensively integrates policy orientations focused on reducing costs, enhancing efficiency, improving quality, and strengthening service provision, thereby advancing the efficient integration of cold-chain logistics with the production, circulation, and consumption of fresh agricultural products, and fostering end‑to‑end, full‑chain convergence across the industrial and supply chains.

The Plan emphasizes systematic development, scientific planning, and the comprehensive restructuring of the cold-chain logistics sector. The “321” operational framework. As the first five-year plan in the cold-chain logistics sector, the Plan exhibits distinct features of top-level design and systematic advancement. First, it for the first time delineates a comprehensive spatial layout for China’s cold-chain logistics. By aligning with the spatial configuration of major agricultural production areas, urban agglomerations and metropolitan circles as key consumption hubs, and import–export ports, the Plan proposes a three-tier node structure—comprising national backbone cold-chain logistics bases, production‑consumption cold-chain distribution centers, and end‑to‑end cold-chain facilities—thereby rationally optimizing the spatial organization of cold-chain logistics development and providing strategic guidance for the hierarchical and categorized spatial planning of the industry in the years ahead. Second, it precisely shapes the operational architecture of China’s cold-chain logistics corridor network. Leveraging the three-tier node system, the Plan achieves seamless connectivity from origin to destination across the “last mile,” while fostering interlinkages among multi‑level nodes. It introduces the concept of a nationwide integrated cold-chain logistics network that coordinates trunk‑and‑branch logistics with last‑mile delivery, identifies four horizontal and four vertical major corridors linking key production and consumption regions as well as critical ports, and promotes the channelization, scaling, and networking of cold-chain logistics operations. This effort accelerates the development of cold-chain industrial corridors characterized by concentrated resource aggregation, laying a solid foundation for enhancing the economies of scale inherent in the cold-chain logistics network. Third, it refines a coordinated domestic‑international cold-chain circulation system that radiates in both directions. In response to the requirements of building a new development paradigm, the Plan comprehensively integrates domestic production‑consumption and international import‑export dynamics into its spatial planning and network‑operation framework.

The Plan emphasizes quality assurance and establishes a comprehensive cold-chain logistics service and regulatory framework. As cold-chain logistics directly supports food consumption and addresses critical public‑health issues such as food safety, enhancing quality, ensuring safety, and maintaining stable operations are paramount to its development. The Plan adopts a systematic approach, integrating market‑oriented services with robust regulatory safeguards, to ensure the quality of cold-chain products throughout the logistics process. First, it seeks to upgrade the quality of cold-chain logistics services by category. For the first time, the Plan advances the construction of a cold-chain logistics service system based on detailed product categories, distinguishing between major fresh‑food groups—such as meat, fruits, vegetables, aquatic products, dairy products, and frozen foods—and pharmaceutical products like vaccines. The product characteristics of the “6+1” categories and the specific features of their production and distribution processes call for targeted, category‑specific guidance aimed at enhancing specialized service capabilities and optimizing supply‑chain operations for distinctive products. This approach will help the industry refine its service structure, elevate service standards, and improve overall development quality. Second, it is essential to strengthen regulatory oversight and enhance quality‑control capacities. The Plan places great emphasis on ensuring the quality and safety of food and drug circulation, balancing domestic and international considerations with safety and development goals. It underscores the need for end-to-end visibility, controllability, traceability, and accountability across the entire cold‑chain network and all product categories. By accelerating the refinement of regulatory frameworks, innovating supervisory methods, and improving inspection, testing, and quarantine procedures, the Plan seeks to establish a comprehensive cold‑chain logistics regulatory system, thereby bolstering operational stability and resilience in the face of unexpected disruptions.

The Plan underscores innovative development, clarifies the direction of innovation in cold-chain logistics, and lays a solid foundation for sustainable growth. Grounded in the new stage of development and guided by the new development philosophy, cold-chain logistics must pursue a path of innovative, intensive, and sustainable development. In response to the demands of innovative development and the underlying support systems, the Plan dedicates two extensive chapters to a systematic exposition, highlighting a strategic vision that prioritizes long-term planning and accelerates innovation. First, it sets out the directions and priorities for end-to-end innovative development in cold-chain logistics. By accurately seizing the major opportunities presented by the latest round of scientific and technological revolution, the Plan identifies the pathways and requirements for advancing digitalization, smart technologies, and green practices in cold-chain logistics. At the same time, it emphasizes adapting to emerging trends in the restructuring of the cold-chain industry, focusing on key areas such as technological and equipment innovation, innovations in corridor‑network organization, and ecosystem‑wide integration, and articulating specific innovation targets for the coming period. Second, the Plan delineates tasks for building a robust support system for cold-chain logistics. Addressing fundamental challenges and imbalances in China’s cold-chain development, the Plan strengthens policy guidance and reinforces the foundations for sustainable progress. In response to issues such as fragmented, inefficient, and non‑standardized market players, it encourages enterprises to scale up, specialize, and network, with a particular focus on cultivating leading cold-chain logistics firms to enhance international competitiveness. It also calls for accelerating the improvement of statistical, standard‑setting, and talent‑development frameworks, thereby fostering steady and sustained growth in the sector.

The Plan deeply grasps the requirements for the development of China’s cold-chain logistics under the new circumstances, emphasizing the strategic nature of development and the systematic approach to its advancement. It adopts a holistic, dual‑sided planning framework that integrates supply and demand, coordinates the production–transportation–sales chain, accounts for category‑specific differences, and promotes both domestic and international integrated development. Guided by the inherent principles governing the cold-chain logistics sector, the Plan comprehensively establishes an integrated development system encompassing infrastructure, operations, services, support mechanisms, and regulatory frameworks, serving as a guiding document for the long-term development of China’s cold-chain logistics.