Air cargo processed by Hong Kong airport's largest cargo handler dropped for a third month in June, bringing down the first half's cargo throughput by 4.7 per cent to 1.33 million tonnes.
Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals handled just 220,726 tonnes of air cargo last month, a year-on-year drop of 10.3 per cent, compared with a drop of 12 per cent in May and 9.3 per cent in April.
Most of the drop came from imports, with June recording a year-on- year decline of 16 per cent, accentuating a generally slack second quarter.
Hactl blamed the slower imports on Japan and the mainland, especially the former as March's earthquake and tsunami cut the import volume to the city by more than a fifth in the first six months of the year. Imports from the mainland dropped by 6.3 per cent during the same period.
'Domestic demand from the mainland has surged since the beginning of the year,' Hactl executive director Lilian Chan said. 'That might have something to do with the drop in imports from the mainland.'
Local importers may have started procuring more from the Middle East as imports from that region registered a strong growth of 23.8 per cent in the six months to June.
