MACAO, March 4 (Xinhua) -- The cross-border vehicle traffic of Macao grew by 8.5 percent year-on-year to 457,090 trips in January, while commercial flights in airport rose by 14.2 percent to 5,750 trips, the special administrative region's statistic service said here on Monday.

The latest report from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that the number of vehicle trips passing through the border gate edged up by 0.3 percent to 298,639. Meanwhile, there were 139,366 trips going through the Checkpoint of Cotai, up by 16.3 percent and 15,769 trips crossing the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge.

The DSEC report added that the commercial flights at the Macao International Airport totaled 5,750 trips, among which the trips to and from the mainland increased by 25.0 percent to 2,297, whereas those to and from China's Taiwan region dropped by 3.8 percent to 1,089.

Gross weight of containerized cargo by land soared by 86.1 percent year-on-year to 2,300 tonnes, and that of seaborne containerized cargo grew by 17.3 percent to 16,266 tonnes.

Seaborne container throughput amounted to 12,869 Twenty-feet Equivalent Unit (TEU), equivalent to 8,713 containers handled, up by 5.6 percent and 4.4 percent respectively.

The Macao International Airport handled 3,584 tonnes of air cargo, a growth of 3.7 percent year-on-year, of which gross weight of outward cargo rose by 16.3 percent to 2,592 tonnes, while that of transit cargo declined by 34.2 percent to 420 tonnes.