The chief executive of Hong Kong’s international airport said yesterday the decline in airport traffic amid the global economic downturn was slowing, days after the government reported economic growth for the first time in a year.
The Airport Authority Hong Kong said in a statement it handled 4 million passenger trips last month — a 9.5 percent drop from the same month a year ago — and 291,000 tonnes of cargo, an 8.3 percent decline.
But those declines are lower than the double-digit drops in June, when the airport recorded 12.7 percent fewer passenger trips at 3.6 million and 17.6 percent less cargo at 259,000 tonnes.
The decline in cargo traffic last month also marked the first time the figure narrowed to single digits since last October.
“The latest figures indicate that the downward momentum may have slowed,” Airport Authority chief executive Stanley Hui (許漢忠) said in the statement, but added that “it will take some time before overall traffic performance returns to pre-crisis levels.”
“The business climate is still challenging as economic activities remain low and this, coupled with the difficult operating environment for the aviation industry, would continue to affect the pace of recovery,” Hui said.
For the first seven months of the year, the passenger traffic at the Hong Kong airport plunged 8.4 percent to 26.4 million from a year ago and cargo traffic plummeted 18.1 percent to 1.8 million tonnes.
Hui also attributed the recovery to reduced anxiety among travelers about the swine flu epidemic.
Despite the global economic downturn, the Hong Kong airport reported a profit of HK$2.6 billion (US$335 million) for the fiscal year that ended March 31 thanks to increased revenue from retail outlets and a HK$193 million profit from its 35 percent stake in the international airport in Hangzhou.
The Airport Authority’s announcement came after the Hong Kong government said on Friday that the territory’s economy, hit by free-falling world demand for exports for four-straight quarters, grew by 3.3 percent in the second quarter on a seasonally adjusted quarter-to-quarter basis. The economy contracted 4.3 percent in the first quarter.
Higher demand for Hong Kong’s exports, particularly within China, contributed to the recovery.
Exports dropped 12.4 percent in the second quarter compared with the same period last year, the government said. That was tamer than the nearly 23 percent drop-off in the first quarter.
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