Hong Kong continues to be one of the world's safest cities with crime figures remaining low last year, a government press release said Wednesday.

Some 1,299 reported crimes per 100,000 people were recorded, while the overall crime detection rate of 39.2 percent continued to compare favorably with other major cities, said the city's Fight Crime Committee in its latest report on crime, the full version of which is to be published Thursday.

The report shows that compared with 2002, robberies fell 8 percent, homicides dropped 24.6 percent, serious narcotics offences decreased 4.5 percent and street deception cases plunged 29 percent last year.

However, violent crimes rose 2.8 percent, mainly due to the increase in serious assaults including assaults on police, and arson. However, the figure is still low when compared with those for 1998, 1999 and 2000.

Juvenile offender arrests were down 3.4 percent, while the figure for young people aged 16 to 20 was comparable to that of 2002. For narcotics offences, the arrests of people under 21 fell 16.8 percent.

Following strengthened co-operation and vigorous enforcement action by Hong Kong and Chinese mainland authorities, there was a downward trend in young people involved in the trafficking, manufacturing and possession of drugs, particularly psychotropic drugs.

(People's Daily  July 29, 2004)