A survey on Hong Kong which was released on Thursday revealed a low crime victimization rate, indicating that Hong Kong remains a safe city.

The survey on "Crime and Its Victims in Hong Kong in 2005" was conducted from January to May, 2006, via a Thematic Household Survey coordinated by the Census and Statistics Department. It was the seventh of its kind conducted under the auspices of the Fight Crime Committee.

Some 20,100 households involving 56,100 people aged 12 and over were interviewed, representing a response rate of 83 percent.

The survey results estimated that the total number of crime victimization in 2005 was 358,800, an increase of 1.9 percent when compared to 352,200 in 1998.

Of the 358,800 cases, 214,100 (or 60 percent) were against people and 144,700 (or 40 percent) were against households.

The victimization rate for personal crimes in 2005 was 35 per 1, 000 people, representing a slight increase when compared to 34 per 1,000 people in 1998. The victimization rate for household crimes was 66 per 1,000 households, with a significant decrease when compared to 80 per 1,000 households in 1998.

Overall speaking, victimization rates have been stable over the years. For personal crimes, the overall rate and the rates for most individual types of crime fluctuated by only small margins. For household crimes, the overall rate dropped by 18 percent from 1998 to 2005. During the same period, the rates for individual types of household crime were also on a downward trend.

A spokesman for the Fight Crime Committee said that the general crime trends as revealed by the survey results broadly followed the actual crime trends as recorded by the Police for most of the crimes. It provides a separate and useful source of information to the Government for planning police deployment, anti-crime strategies and crime prevention measures.

"We will make reference to the survey results where appropriate and adopt a targeted approach in our publicity work to enlist the support of the public to fight crime. The Police will also consider if the crime reporting procedures could be further streamlined to facilitate crime reporting," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency October 19, 2007)