BEIJING -- China's logistics activities slowed in January due to the impact of the Spring Festival holiday, industry data showed Monday.

The logistics performance index for January came in at 49.9 percent, retreating from 58.6 percent in December 2019, according to the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

A reading above 50 percent indicates expansion while a reading below reflects contraction.

He Hui, director of the China Logistics Information Center, attributed the slowdown to cyclical factors such as the Spring Festival holiday.

As China is intensifying efforts to curb the novel coronavirus (2019-nCov), he said the epidemic will affect logistics demand in the short term, but production and consumption will unleash when the situation improves, which will pull the sector's growth onto a stable track.

The employment sub-index for the sector retreated to 48.6 percent in January, down 3.6 percentage points from a month earlier.

The sub-index for new orders stood at 50.1 percent while that for business expectation came in at 51.6 percent, indicating that logistics activity is likely to see stable expansion as the new production season approaches.