China's Passenger Traffic Rising

BEIJING, August 9 (Xinhua) -- China's passenger traffic grew steadily in the first four months this year with a slight increase in freight traffic volume, according to figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics.

Total passenger traffic between January and April reached 4.63 billion ridership, 6.6 percent more than the figure for the same 1998 period.

The highway sector registered 4.22 billion ridership during the period, a year-on-year rise of 7.3 percent. A total of 324 million people traveled by trains in the four months, up 1.7 percent, and 18 million people traveled by air during the period, up 2.3 percent on an annual basis.

However, the waterway sector reported a year-on-year decline of 7.3 percent in ridership. Only 66 million people traveled by ship during the period.

Meanwhile, total freight traffic in the January-April period reached 3.98 billion tons, edging up 1.55 percent.

The highway sector saw an increase of 1.8 percent to register 3. 1 billion tons, the railway sector carried 512 million tons of cargo, up 2.2 percent, and the freight traffic in the civil aviation sector surged 18.5 percent to 496,900 tons.

In the meantime, the waterway sector handled 384 million tons of cargo, dipping 1.2 percent on an annual basis.