China's courier sector sees surging profits in Jan.-Aug.

BEIJING, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- China's courier sector maintained strong growth in the first eight months of this year, lifted by booming e-commerce, according to data from the State Post Bureau (SPB). The sector raked in more than 371.5 billion yuan (54 billion U.S. dollars) of revenue in the January-August period, up 24.8 percent year on year. A total of 30.3 billion parcels were shipped during the period, up 27.2 percent from a year ago. Over 4.1 billion parcels were delivered in August alone, up 25.7 percent from August last year, said the SPB. With an average annual growth of 42 percent in the past decade, the country's courier sector has topped the world for four straight years in terms of business volume. The sector saw 495 billion yuan of revenue in 2017.