China logistics growth slows slightly

China's logistics industry grew at a slightly slower rate last year, with demand and added value maintaining steady growth, new data showed on Friday.

The total value of goods carried by China's logistics industry grew 9.5 percent year on year to reach 197.8 trillion yuan (32.3 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2013, the National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said in a statement.

The pace was slightly down by 0.3 percentage points compared with a year earlier.

The total added value of the logistics industry rose 8.5 percent to 3.9 trillion yuan, down 0.7 percentage point from a year earlier.

However, logistics costs were still quite high, the statement said.

Total logistics expenditure rose 9.3 percent to 10.2 trillion yuan. The growth rate was 2.1 percentage points lower than a year earlier.

The proportion of logistics costs in the country's GDP was 18 percent, the same level as a year earlier. This percentage was still much high than around 10 percent in developed economies, suggesting low efficiency of logistics.

Chinese government has taken measures to reduce logistics costs since mid 2011, including lowering tax burdens of logistics companies, raising investment in infrastructure construction and improving logistics for agricultural products.