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The "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reforms and Promoting Chinese-style Modernization" reviewed and adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to "improve the system and mechanism for modern infrastructure construction" and clearly stated "develop general aviation and low-altitude economy."

"The scale of China's low-altitude economy market will reach one trillion yuan in 2025, and is expected to reach 10 trillion yuan in the long term, comparable to the traditional aviation industry." At the 2024 Digital Low-altitude Conference held recently, Li Jian, former deputy director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, pointed out that it is estimated that the scale of China's low-altitude economy will exceed 500 billion yuan in 2023.

The low-altitude economy, which contains broad development opportunities, is spreading its wings and "flying" into people's daily lives. At this critical juncture, what opportunities and challenges will the low-altitude industry ecology face? How should relevant companies make precise layouts in accordance with the deployment of the "Decision"? Recently, the International Business Daily reporter interviewed a number of experts and company leaders to offer suggestions for activating the huge potential of the trillion-level low-altitude economy.

Fly to the vast world

Technology is changing people's lifestyles at an accelerated pace. In Shenzhen Central Park, "airdrop" has become a new way of food delivery. Using drones, a milk tea from 2 kilometers away can be delivered to consumers in just 10 minutes, and the delivery fee is the same as that of ordinary orders. This convenient and efficient delivery method has gradually become part of people's lives and has become a common scene for people to shop.

As one of the first application areas of the low-altitude economy, low-altitude logistics has attracted many companies to compete for layout and forward-looking investment. "Meituan has laid out low-altitude logistics in 2017. Now it has opened 31 routes in cities such as Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, and has completed more than 300,000 orders in total, and can deliver 92,000 kinds of goods to users. It is worth mentioning that in the research and development of unmanned aerial vehicles, we have achieved independent research and development of more than 90% of the components!" Talking about the development of low-altitude logistics, Yan Yan, head of public affairs of Meituan UAV, was interviewed by the International Business Daily reporter, and his pride was beyond words.

Fengyi Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. is also committed to developing low-altitude logistics business. The reporter learned that the company has opened more than 400 routes across the country, flown nearly one million flights, transported more than 4.2 million pieces of goods, and the average daily operation volume exceeded 20,000 tickets.

In an interview with the International Business Daily, Zou Peng, the company's brand director, said that since the company established its drone team in 2015, it has been deeply engaged in independent research and development, and has made breakthroughs in transportation distance and weight. "Now, our drones can transport up to 50 kilograms and up to 130 kilometers."

The continuous progress of enterprises is a clear sign of the industry's progress. Yang Jincai, a member of the European Academy of Sciences in France and chairman of the World Drone Conference, predicts that by 2040, drone delivery will account for 30% of the daily package delivery volume. "Today, the demand for low-altitude logistics market dominated by drones has increased by more than 18%, and SF Express, JD.com, and Meituan have a demand for up to one million drones," Yang Jincai told the International Business Daily reporter.

The reporter learned that in some high-timeliness or special scenarios, drones can demonstrate unique advantages and become an indispensable alternative.

"If the delivery process involves special areas such as rugged mountains, paid attractions, closed schools, or special time periods such as night-time delivery of medicines and peak food ordering hours, then the use of drones will become a new way to supplement transportation capacity," said Yan Yan.

In Zou Peng's view, low-altitude logistics has been applied to express delivery, agricultural product transportation, medical supplies transportation, engineering material transportation and other fields, and is increasingly becoming an important direction for the development of the logistics industry. "As one of the most widely used scenarios for low-altitude economic commercial applications, low-altitude logistics is gradually gaining favor in the market."

"China's low-altitude economy is increasingly extending to cutting-edge consumer areas such as low-altitude logistics and low-altitude tourism, and the leading and driving role of leading enterprises has also been significantly enhanced." Zhou Yuzhe, deputy director of the Aerospace Information Research Office of the Future Industry Research Center of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, told the International Business Daily.

Aim higher and further

The low-altitude economy has great development potential and broad market prospects. How to better promote its high-quality development is a new proposition given by the times. Yang Jincai pointed out that scientific development and management of existing air resources is the "magic weapon" for the low-altitude economy to become a new growth pole.

"The traditional conservative airspace management model limits the advantages of new technologies and is not conducive to the sustainable and high-quality development of the low-altitude economy." Yan Yan suggested an intelligent air traffic management system, refined flight management services, and reasonable setting of flight intervals.

In addition, Yan Yan believes that the speed of opening up urban airspace and the degree of refined management will have a great impact on the willingness of enterprises to invest. "For example, Shenzhen quickly introduced a policy of trial first, which helped us to carry out pilot tests. We opened the first route in the country and realized urban air delivery."

In January this year, Shenzhen issued the "Regulations on Promoting Low-altitude Economic Industries in Shenzhen Special Economic Zone" to coordinate and solve the airspace demarcation problem and promote low-altitude airspace management. In addition, since July, Guangdong, Shanghai, Hangzhou and other places have successively issued documents to promote the high-quality development of the low-altitude economy.

Zou Peng believes that the complicated flight plan application process and the lack of interoperability of low-altitude data are also issues that need to be urgently addressed in the development of the low-altitude economy. "I hope that relevant departments can simplify the flight plan application process, promote the interoperability of low-altitude data, and improve the laws, regulations and standards system for drones while improving the utilization rate of airspace resources."

The standardized development of the industry cannot be separated from the strong guidance and support of policies. "It is recommended that relevant departments issue top-level design documents as soon as possible, formulate clear industry development plans, and provide directional guidance and development frameworks for the low-altitude economy." Zhou Yuzhe said that airspace policies can provide a basis for making full use of airspace resources and standardizing airspace demarcation and management. Industry policies encourage technological innovation, business model innovation, and industrial integration innovation. "These policies will help all regions to scientifically plan the development of local low-altitude economies."

It is reported that Shenzhen has taken the lead in establishing a professional technical committee for standardization of low-altitude economy and launched the first batch of 18 "Shenzhen standards for low-altitude economy", striving to take the lead in the construction of rules and standards system this year.

■ Our reporter Gu Hongru