HONG KONG, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong's total port cargo throughput in the first quarter this year dropped around 10 percent year on year to 59.1 million tonnes, official data showed on Tuesday.

Within this total, inward and outward port cargo decreased by 8.9 percent and 12 percent compared with the first quarter of 2018 respectively, as released by Census and Statistics Department of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government.

In the first quarter this year, the port of Hong Kong handled 4.42 million TEUs (Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit) of containers, down 9.5 percent year on year.

The number of ocean vessel arrivals in the first quarter went down 3.6 percent to 6,037 from a year earlier. Meanwhile, the number of river vessel arrivals shrank 9.3 percent to 34,417.