China's air cargo transport rebounded to near pre-pandemic levels in January according to state media.

Citing Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) data, Xinhua said Chinese airlines saw the volume of cargo and mail transported by air at approximately 654,000 tonnes in January, or 97.3% of the amount recorded in the same period in 2019 before Covid-19 hit.

It said the degree of recovery expanded 6.6 percentage points from December 2021.

Meanwhile, it said the January volume was a 1.1% increase from that month, although it is a 2.3% drop from the same period last year.

CAAC data also shows that the civil aviation industry handled 29.51 million passenger trips last month, which the state media noted was only down 2.2% year on year.