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Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam has revealed that it handled 729,174 tonnes of cargo during the first half of 2012, a drop of 3.5 per cent on the same period of 2011.

The Dutch hub reported that exports made up 48.7 per cent of the total, while imports were down 3.5 per cent on a year-on-year basis, Lloyds Loading List said.

The Far East was Schiphol's leading market with a 38.61 per cent share of the total in the second quarter, although it was down 11.48 per cent on the previous year.

'Although our tonnages are slightly down on 2011, ours is the strongest performance among Europe's top three cargo airports, and better than the entire European market, which was down 4.9 per cent up to May,' said Enno Osinga, senior vice-president for cargo at Schiphol.