BEIJING - China's courier delivery business volume remained in the world's number one spot for a fifth straight year in 2018, an official said Wednesday.

The vigorous courier delivery business supported online retailing transactions worth nearly 7 trillion yuan ($989.71 billion) and created jobs for over 200,000 people last year, Ma Junsheng, head of the State Post Bureau, said in a speech commemorating the 50th World Post Day.

The country should encourage postal and delivery companies to increase the types of services they offer and provide more resilient, targeted and varied services to meet growing market demands, Ma said.

Meanwhile, more efforts will be made to foster delivery logistics enterprises with international competitiveness and accelerate the integration of postal delivery enterprises and the advanced manufacturing industry, according to Ma.

Ma also called for the expansion of delivery services to rural areas to boost the sales of agriculture products and promote poverty alleviation.

In 2018, the total business volume of China's postal industry reached 1.23 trillion yuan, up 26.4 percent from one year earlier, while business income (excluding the direct operating income of postal saving banks) increased 19.4 percent to 790.47 billion yuan.