BEIJING, Oct. 31 -- More than 49.09 billion inter-regional trips were made in China during the first three quarters of this year, up 5.4 percent from one year earlier, the Ministry of Transport said on Thursday.

The country's transport sector has maintained generally stable growth during the January-September period, Wu Chungeng, chief planner with the ministry told a press conference.

During the period, railway, waterway and civil aviation passenger traffic increased by 13.8 percent, 1.1 percent and 19.1 percent, respectively year on year, while road passenger flow went up 4.7 percent year on year, Wu said.

Wu also noted that the country's cargo throughput at ports climbed 3.4 percent year on year to 12.97 billion tonnes during the period. Specifically, foreign trade cargo throughput at ports rose 7.6 percent over the previous year.

During the period, the country's ports handled 250 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers, climbing 7.7 percent year on year.

The country's fixed-asset investment in the transport sector amounted to 2.71 trillion yuan (about 380.35 billion U.S. dollars) during the January-September period, Wu added.