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Rebound for Hong Kong air cargo

Updated 12:27 p.m. ET, Mon Jun 7, 2004

The JOURNAL of COMMERCE ONLINE

Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals Ltd., which handles nearly all of the air cargo in the world's busiest international air cargo hub, said it handled 16.7 percent more cargo last month than a year earlier, when the SARS outbreak choked throughput.

Total throughput in May climbed to 183,356 metric tons from a year earlier, Hactl said in a statement. Exports rose 19 percent to 98,658 tons, imports rose 17.1 percent to 62,008 tons and transshipments rose 6.5 percent to 22,690 tons.

By comparison, air cargo throughput in May 2003 rose just 3.3 percent on year as regional economies were hit by the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome and airlines responded to plummeting demand by cutting flights. A year earlier, in May 2002, the increase in air cargo throughput was 25 percent.