Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that new registration of motor vehicles increased by 22.6% year-on-year to 3,494 in the second quarter of 2017, with that of motorcycles (2,258) surging by 44.0%. New registration of motor vehicles in the first half year of 2017 went up by 6.0% year-on-year to 7,256, attributable to an increase in heavy motorcycles (+21.1%). As at the end of June 2017, total number of licensed motor vehicles dropped by 1.9% year-on-year to 243,570, of which heavy motorcycles (94,600) grew by 3.0% while light automobiles (109,500) decreased by 1.6%. There were 3,630 cases of traffic accidents in the second quarter of 2017 and number of victims totalled 1,141, up by 2.2% and 6.0% respectively year-on-year. In the first half year of 2017, number of traffic accidents fell by 2.9% year-on-year to 7,208 cases, resulting in 2,259 casualties and 4 of them were killed.
Cross-border vehicle traffic totalled 1,198,788 trips in the second quarter of 2017, down by 7.1% year-on-year. In the first half year of 2017, cross-border vehicle traffic decreased by 6.9% year-on-year to 2,374,139 trips, with vehicle traffic through the Border Gate dropping by 12.1% while that through the Checkpoint of Cotai rising by 10.5%. Passenger ferry movements between Macao and Mainland China and between Macao and Hong Kong increased by 3.6% year-on-year to 34,714 trips in the second quarter, and movements in the first half year went up by 1.7% to 69,252 trips.
Commercial flight movements at the Macao International Airport totalled 13,474 in the second quarter of 2017, edged down by 0.1% year-on-year. In the first half year of 2017, commercial flight movements decreased by 3.0% year-on-year to 26,381; flight movements to and from Thailand and Taiwan dropped by 30.3% and 13.8% respectively, while movements to and from Mainland China and the Republic of Korea increased by 1.5% and 73.7%. Helicopter flight movements between Macao and Mainland China and between Macao and Hong Kong grew by 22.0% year-on-year to 2,972 in the second quarter, and movements in the first half year rose by 26.7% to 6,091.
Gross weight of seaborne containerized cargo decreased by 14.9% year-on-year to 40,434 tonnes in the second quarter of 2017. Seaborne container throughput (31,740 TEU) and containers handled (22,065) went up by 0.4% and 0.9% respectively. In the first half year of 2017, gross weight of seaborne containerized cargo fell by 11.9% year-on-year to 83,730 tonnes, of which 53.0% (44,400 tonnes) passed through the Inner Harbour. Seaborne container throughput in the first half year dropped by 1.7% year-on-year to 62,121 TEU, equivalent to 43,227 containers handled, up slightly by 0.1%.
Gross weight of containerized cargo by land decreaseded by 8.0% year-on-year to 4,801 tonnes in the second quarter of 2017. In the first half year of 2017, gross weight of containerized cargo by land dropped by 30.6% year-on-year to 8,449 tonnes, of which cargo through the Checkpoint of Cotai (8,013 tonnes) accounted for 94.8%.
The Macao International Airport handled 9,599 tonnes of air cargo in the second quarter of 2017, up by 20.7% year-on-year. In the first half year of 2017, air cargo increased by 14.6% year-on-year to 17,331 tonnes, of which outward cargo (10,686 tonnes) and transit cargo (3,713 tonnes) rose by 20.5% and 16.8% respectively, while inward cargo (2,931 tonnes) dropped by 4.5%. In the first half year, outward air cargo to Vietnam (13.6% of total) and Taiwan (41.4%) grew by 76.2% and 12.2% year-on-year, respectively, whereas inward air cargo from Taiwan (53.5% of total) went down by 11.4%.
At the end of June 2017, number of fixed-line telephone subscribers decreased by 5.2% year-on-year to 135,263. Number of mobile phone subscribers rose by 7.7% to 2,018,665, of which stored-value GSM card subscribers (1,311,015) accounted for 64.9%. Number of internet subscribers increased by 7.3% year-on-year to 376,602. In the second quarter of 2017, the cumulative duration of internet usage reached 310 million hours, up by 5.5% year-on-year, and the duration went up by 4.8% to 610 million hours in the first half year of 2017.