China's postal business revenue surged to $12.9 bln

China's post service business revenue stood at 93 billion yuan (12.9 billion U.S. dollars) in 2007, up 16 percent year on year, Xinhua learned Friday from a work conference of the Chinese State Post Bureau."The year of 2007 was the fastest growing year of the country's post industry and the China Post Group saw robust growth of postal, financial and express services," said Ma Junsheng, director of the bureau at the conference.The development goal for the country's post industry in 2008 includes increasing the total business revenue to 106.5 billion yuan, improving the express service qualities and establishing a post service quality appraisal system.Ma said the country was scheduled to help every village in the country to have access to post services in 2008.In 1998, China carried out the reform to separate postal and telecommunications businesses from each other nationwide, and in 2005 the government carried out further reforms to separate administration from business operation in the postal sector.Under the new postal system, postal enterprises operate independently while administrative departments supervise the industry according to law.In January 2007, the restructured State Post Bureau and the China Post Group had officially started operation. By September 4 last year, all postal businesses at the provincial level had been separated from administrative functions.(Xinhua News Agency January 26, 2008)