Officials at Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals Limited continued to see a downward spiral in cargo throughput last month, noting that July numbers represented a 7.7-percent, year-over-year decrease in tonnage. Cargo activity since January sits at 1.56 million tonnes, a 5.1-percent decrease when compared to the first seven months of 2010.
These negative numbers are reflected in Hactl’s import and export totals for July, which are down 13.1 percent and 9.8 percent year-over-year, respectively. So far this year, export volume is down nearly 8 percent, and import numbers have taken a 7 percent slide.
Transshipment cargo seems to be the one bright spot in Hactl’s second-quarter results. The company’s July total of 126,369 tonnes is a year-over-year increase of 9.8 percent. The total growth for all of 2011 is 337,488 tonnes, a 5.3-percent, year-over-year rise.
To help reverse this trend, Hactl added a new customer, Tianjin Airlines, last month.
This’s a known trend that the air-based logistic industry in Hong Kong is going down sharply as China is opening more shipment ports along its eastern coastline. Thus, this’s foreseeable that the shipment figures will not raise up again even the economics condition turns positive in the city. It is just keep diminishing til it is eventually replaced by other China air-logistic enterprises. Most investors said: If we are shipping stuffs in or out from China to other major cities in the world. We no longer need to use Hong Kong as a gateway anymore. Because we can just get any flights to any China cities directly right now.
As Cathay aims to open their first air-cargo terminal in town on mid 2012. This is predictable that the tonnage of Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals Limited on each year will drop more sharply after that. Intaking new customers will not give much help.