Taiwan's biggest international airport recorded a drop in both passenger and cargo volumes in the first six months of 2011, denting the government's hopes of making it a transportation hub of East Asia.

Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport saw arrivals of 11.94 million passengers in the first six months, declining 4.1 percent from the same period last year, according to statistics released Friday by its management.

The Taoyuan International Airport Corp. (TIAC) data showed that of the arrivals, 892,600 were transiting passengers, down 14.9 percent from the 1.05 million who made transit stops there last year.

Cargo shipments stood at 817,433 tons in the first half of the year, representing an on-year fall of 6.7 percent.

Of the shipments, 284,681 tons were transshipped cargos, down 14.03 percent from the 331,127 tons of transshipments through the airport in northern Taiwan in the same period last year.

"The figures are alarming," said deputy transport minister Yeh Kuang-shih, who doubles as chairman of the TIAC.

The state-run TIAC was established in November 2010 with funding from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) to manage the airport.

One of TIAC's major goals is to turn the airport into a regional air transportation center.

In order to become an East Asian transportation hub, the airport must be able to attract passengers from China to fly to Taiwan for transit stops, Yeh said.

A TIAC analysis has noted that many inland airports in China only provide limited international air services. Therefore, passengers from inland cities who want to travel abroad must first fly to Beijing or Shanghai for transits.

Since the air services at the airports in Beijing and Shanghai are usually overloaded, Taiwan can be a good option for China's transiting passengers, according to the analysis.

But Taiwan must first lift restrictions on China travelers' entry to Taiwan, officials at the Civil Aeronautics Administration were cited by the Central News Agency (CNA) as saying.

They admitted it would be difficult to resolve the issue in the short term, according to the CNA.