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By Xie Fang

China International Travel Service Corporation (CITS), the country's largest travel agency, released its audited semi-annual financial report on Thursday, revealing a striking business performance during the first half of 2018.

The company, with its stocks included in the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Emerging Markets Index, generated a total of roughly 21.84 billion yuan in operating revenue during the reporting period, a year-on-year growth of up to 67.77 percent. Its net profit also rose by 47.6 percent from a year earlier to nearly 1.92 billion yuan.

The company's weighted average rate of return on equity climbed by 2.99 percentage points year over year to 12.94 percent while its basic earnings per share also jumped by 47.6 percent to 0.9829 yuan.

According to the report, nearly half of the company's total operating revenue came from the sale of duty-free commodities, which became its largest revenue source by bringing in around 14.95 billion yuan in sales during the reporting period.

To be specific, the company earned over 4.03 billion yuan by selling duty-free commodities in the Haitang Bay Shopping Center located in the coastal city of Sanya, Hainan Province. It also generated around 3.97 billion yuan in sales from its shops in the Beijing Capital International Airport and another 3.83 billion yuan from the Shanghai-based Sunrise Duty Free which was taken over by the company during the period.

Apart from selling duty-free products, the company had also made great efforts to diversify its travel business. By focusing on the countries covered by the Belt and Road Initiative, its outbound travel service generated a total of 1.02 billion yuan in revenue for the company.