(Yicai Global) April 26 -- China’s transportation sector operated efficiently in the first quarter despite the challenges of the Covid-19 outbreaks and transport-related fixed-asset investment stayed high, boosting the growth of the macro economy, the Ministry of Transport said today.

Freight traffic ticked up 1.5 percent in the first quarter from the same period last year to 11.3 billion tons, the same growth rate as the previous quarter, said Wang Songbo, deputy director of the Ministry of Transport’s planning department. Cargo throughput at ports increased by 1.6 percent to 3.6 billion tons.

Fixed-asset investment in transport-related projects jumped 9.8 percent in the first quarter from the same period last year to CNY636 billion (USD97.4 billion), Wang said. This was 1 percentage point more than the growth rate in the fourth quarter last year.

Passenger loads on public transport though slumped 22.5 percent to 1.54 billion people as controls imposed to curb the new waves of Covid-19 restricted people’s movements.

The logistics bottlenecks in major areas such as Shanghai started to ease from the beginning of the month, said Shu Chi, spokesperson for the Ministry of Transport. As of yesterday, 22 provincial-level regions including the municipality of Shanghai and its neighboring provinces Jiangsu and Zhejiang have activated a unified pass for cargo trucks to ensure that important supplies get delivered.

The roads are responsible for 70 percent of China’s freight transportation and are important links that keep the industrial supply chains humming and ensure stable economic and social development. Most major road construction projects across the country are proceeding as normal and the building of transportation hubs and ports are progressing smoothly, Wang said.

Banks, though, need to help transport firms that have been affected by the pandemic and should not blindly cut off loans to companies in financial difficulty, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission said yesterday. Lenders should be more flexible regarding the maturity period of loans, optimize interest rates and adjust the means of repayment, it added.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Kim Taylor