URUMQI, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- Fresh beef and mutton, raisins and date, and easy-to-crack walnuts from Xinjiang are selling like hot cakes across the country as people are celebrating the Spring Festival, or Chinese Lunar New Year.

Since January, Xinjiang's air cargo volume has exceeded 7,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 49.6 percent. Among them, Xinjiang's shipments to south China, east China, north China and northwest China have increased in volume.

China Southern Airlines air lines have hit a shipping peak in January. The routes to Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Changsha and other directions had been at full capacity, according to Yang Fang, a freight department employee in its Xinjiang Branch.

For years, governments at all level of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region have been working to promote its specialties. With the development of air transport, more and more Xinjiang specialties are reaching growing numbers of people outside Xinjiang.

Zhang Youcheng, who runs a trading company in Urumqi, said that beef, mutton, yoghurt, fruit and nuts were the items most in demand.

Besides offline stores, e-commerce platforms are also contributing to the Spring Festival sale of Xinjiang's specialties. Some merchants have efficiently cut time and logistics costs by having warehouses in hinterland cities such as Zhengzhou and Xi'an.

East China's Zhejiang Province has built 11 public warehouses for farm produce from Aksu, Xinjiang, which cover 70 percent of cities and counties in the coastal province.

Xinjiang occupies one-sixth of China's territory. It currently has 21 civil airports, the most among provincial-level regions on the Chinese mainland. So far, 49 airline companies operate 257 air routes in Xinjiang. Urumqi is connected with 73 cities in China and 17 countries worldwide.