Hong Kong International Airport's air cargo volumes showed significant growth in January, up 43.3% to 301,000 tonnes from January last year.

However, a drop of 1.6% in passenger traffic to 3.9 million was recorded while air traffic movements fell 3.2% to 23,460, the Airport Authority said today.

The slight drop of passenger traffic and air-traffic movements were mainly attributed to the relatively higher base as a result of the Chinese New Year travel peak last January.

During last month, Hong Kong residents travel dropped 9% year on year while visitor traffic grew 2%, with those from Southeast Asia and North Asia showing the highest increases. Transfer and transit traffic registered a slight drop of 1%.

On the cargo side, nearly all major markets showed a double-digit growth over the same period last year. The substantial growth was a result of imports and exports recording a respective yearly growth of 55% and 51% during the month. Meanwhile, transshipments also saw an overall growth of 14%.

The authority's Chief Executive Officer Stanley Hui said the aviation market continued to rebound during the first month of 2010, particularly on the cargo side amid improving economic and global trade activities.

"While passenger volume and air-traffic movements showed mild declines year on year due to the timing difference of the CNY holidays, we believe January and February taken together will likely also show an encouraging growth trend over the same period last year."