Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) reported that cargo volume at the world's busiest airfreight hub continued to decline in September despite increases in both import and export as capacity remains limited.

The Airport Authority said cargo volume dropped by 4.4% year-on-year last month recording throughput of 388,000 tonnes, although freighter movements surged 25% to 6,020, up from 4,815 recorded during the same month last year.

Nonetheless, this marks an improvement month-on-month from the 374,000 tonnes of cargo recorded in August. 

Over the first nine months of the year, cargo throughput at HKIA saw an 8.4% drop to 3.2 million tonnes and on a 12-month rolling basis, cargo volumes fell 7.0% to 4.5 million tonnes.

“On the cargo front, although imports and exports increased by 10% and 4% respectively compared to the same month last year, transshipments experienced a significant decrease due to shortage of belly capacity on passenger flights,” HKIA said in a statement.

“Cargo throughput to and from Southeast Asia and Mainland China experienced the most significant decreases during the month,” it added.