BEIJING, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- China's express delivery sector has handled 50.5 billion parcels in 2018, up 25.8 percent year on year, data from the State Post Bureau (SPB) showed.

Gross business revenue of the sector increased 21.2 percent year on year to hit 601 billion yuan (about 88 billion U.S. dollars) last year, according to the SPB.

The express delivery sector supported annual e-commerce sales of nearly 6.9 trillion yuan and cross-border e-commerce businesses of over 350 billion yuan while creating more than 200,000 new jobs in 2018.

"There are about 100 billion parcel deliveries worldwide each year. China accounts for half of them," said Ma Junsheng, head of the SPB.

In rural areas, 92.4 percent of towns have been covered by express services, said Ma.

A total of 12 billion parcels were delivered in rural areas last year, supporting a total value of more than 700 billion yuan of goods transactions between urban and rural areas.