BEIJING, April 12 (Xinhua) -- China's courier sector maintained strong growth in the first quarter of this year, lifted by booming e-commerce, official data showed Thursday.

The sector raked in more than 127.1 billion yuan (20.2 billion U.S. dollars) of revenue in the January-March period, up 29.1 percent year on year, according to data from the State Post Bureau (SPB).

A total of 9.92 billion parcels were shipped during the period, up 30.6 percent from a year ago, part of which were created by online sales worth 1.5 trillion yuan.

Over 3.94 billion parcels were delivered in March alone, and the SPB expected 4 billion deliveries to be shipped in April.

Boosted by the Belt and Road Initiative and expanding cross-border e-commerce, cross-border courier services have been growing at a faster pace than the average growth of the sector for 10 consecutive months.

With average annual growth of 42 percent in the past decade, the country's courier sector has topped the world for four straight years in terms of business volume.

As the sector grows quickly, government oversight has been reinforced. A new regulation on express delivery services, the first of its kind, will go into effect on May 1.