People visit the exhibition area of Cainiao smart warehouse during the 2019 Global Smart Logistics Summit in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang Province, May 28, 2019. Photo:Xinhua

Cainiao Network, the logistics unit of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, said its cross-border e-commerce logistics orders have returned to pre-epidemic levels and its cross-border logistics and overseas warehouses from China to the world remained in operation.

Pu Hua, head of Cainiao Europe, said on Friday that a number of cross-border logistics routes had stopped due to the epidemic, but the company still ships hundreds of thousands of packages sent by Taobao and AliExpress merchants to key global regions such as Europe and North America.

Steven Verhasselt, vice president of Liege Airport in Belgium, said in an interview on Friday that the volume of cargo from China handled by Liege Airport in the last month has increased by 40 percent compared with a month ago.

Due to the increasing epidemic in many parts of the world, some countries have closed entry routes and passenger flights have been canceled in large numbers. Passenger plane cabins have been converted for goods transportation in international trade. 

To support the transportation, the government has launched a series of measures.

From April 6-12, Chinese and overseas airlines operated a total of 4,445 flights to ship cargo internationally, compared with 1,014 flights before the outbreak, an increase of 338 percent, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said. 

Official data from Cainiao shows that in April, cross-border logistics orders have seen significant growth compared with March and have gradually returned to the daily level before the epidemic. Some Yiwu cross-border merchants have seen a five-fold increase in their sales.