THE country’s logistics sector has maintained its recovery momentum and shown better performance in the first half of 2021, compared with the pre-pandemic level in 2019, an industry report showed.

The value of the country’s social logistics reached 150.9 trillion yuan (US$23.24 trillion) in the period, up 15.7 percent year on year, according to a latest report from the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

The average growth rate of the January-June period in 2020 and 2021 came in at 7.3 percent, the report noted.

The combined revenue of the logistics sector reached 5.7 trillion yuan in the first six months of the year, a rise of 22.8 percent from a year ago, according to the report.

It is estimated that the total value of social logistics would increase by 9 percent to 10 percent throughout the year, said the report.

As a major means of transport, rail freight saw strong growth momentum. According to data from the China State Railway Group Co., the China-Europe freight train service handled 7,377 trips in the first half of this year, up 43 percent from the same period last year, while goods transported totaled 707,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit containers, surging 52 percent year on year.

Air cargo orders also climbed. In the first six months, China’s air cargo volume rose 24.6 percent year on year to 3.74 million tons, according to official data.(Xinhua)