BEIJING — China’s courier delivery sector continued to grow in the first month of the year thanks to the country’s continued efforts to boost consumption and services, official data showed Feb 17.

Revenue for Chinese courier businesses hit 30.99 billion yuan (about $4.5 billion) in January this year, up 6.2 percent year on year, according to the State Post Bureau (SPB).

A total of 2.21 billion deliveries were made during the period, up 2.6 percent year on year, the bureau said.

Over 8 billion deliveries are expected to be made in the first quarter of 2017 with revenue likely to reach over 100 billion yuan, according to SPB data.

China aims to nearly quadruple the revenue of its courier market by 2020 from the 2014 level of 204 billion yuan.

The country aims to establish a delivery network that covers the whole nation with high-quality services by 2020.