The Macao International Airport handled 4.57 million passengers in the first 10 months, seeing a year-on-year rise of 11 percent, according to statistics released by the airport Wednesday.

The airport logged 44,235 take-offs and touch-downs between January and October, a growth of five percent on the same period of 2006, the statistics showed.

The figures showed that however, the airport's cargo movement dropped 19 percent year-on-year in the first 10 months, standing at 148,666 metric tons.

The airport management dues the decrease of the cargo handling mainly to the competition produced by the booming of the air cargo business in the neighboring Pearl River Delta region.

The Macao International Airport is the only airport in the city with a population of 528,000.

(Xinhua News Agency November 7, 2007)