Moving to China's logistics sector now. Fresh data from the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing shows that the sector maintained robust growth in the first quarter of this year. Xia Cheng has more.

China's economic development has been accompanied by an ever-increasing demand for logistics services. The federation report shows that China's overall logistics value climbed to over 62 trillion yuan in the first quarter of 2018, up 7.2 percent year on year. A data breakdown indicates that industrial products remained the main driver of the total logistics value. Mechanical products recorded the highest growth in the first three months of this year, up almost 50 percent year on year. Consumption logistics also saw a sizeable expansion.

HE HUI, DEPUTY DIR. CHINA LOGISTICS INFORMATION CENTER "The overall trend of China's logistics sector is positive, especially in consumption logistics. China's logistics market is still expanding. We think there is still plenty of room for it to grow."

China's logistics sector brought in a total of 2.1 trillion yuan in revenue, up 8.2% from previous year. Meanwhile, its costs are declining. The federation data showed that the ratio of total logistics costs to GDP was 14.5% in the first quarter. That was down 0.4 percentage points from the same period last year.

HE HUI, DEPUTY DIR. CHINA LOGISTICS INFORMATION CENTER "Preferential policies have been put in place. That has significantly boosted the efficiency of the whole industry. Combined with improvement in management and technology application, that has greatly reined in the total logistics costs."

He also pointed out there are still some areas that can be improved to cut logistics costs even more. For example, the logistics facilities in some regions are either insufficient or redundant. Goods transportation through roads, railways, ports and airways hasn't been fully integrated. In addition, high toll fees and increases in labour costs also eat into profits.