China's logistics sector gains momentum

BEIJING - China's logistics industry posted growth for the first five months of 2016, with the value of goods carried by the sector expanding at faster pace, new data showed Thursday.

From January to May, the total value of goods carried by the sector rose 6.1 percent year on year to 86.4 trillion yuan ($13 trillion), the Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said in a statement.

The growth rate was up 0.2 percentage point from the first four months and 0.6 percentage point faster than the same period last year.

Logistics expenditure rose 2.6 percent to 4.2 trillion yuan in the first five months, down by 2.5 percentage points from a year earlier, the statement said.

The industry will continue to see steady growth in the rest of the year, as a sub-index for new logistics orders stood at 55 percent in May, recovering 1.5 percentage points from April and showing improvement in the real economy, the statement said.

China's economy expanded 6.7 percent year on year in the first quarter of 2016, the slowest growth since early 2009.