China plans to build the world’s largest cargo airport near Beijing in a $4.8 billion project due for completion in late 2017. The new airport, which has not yet been named, will have an annual capacity of more than 130 million passengers and 5 million metric tons of cargo. Construction of the 9 runways at a 6,600-acre site at Daxing, 30 miles south of Beijing, will begin this year. Beijing International Airport, the capital’s major air cargo hub, handled 1.7 million tons of cargo last year, up 10.7 percent year-over-year, according to preliminary figures from Airports Council International. The airport is the second largest by volume in China after Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport.

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