- 6·
Mr Ng Yee-yum, OBE, JP
Aged 60. Mr Ng joined the Hong Kong civil service as an Apprentice Engineer in September 1960. He was promoted to Principal Government Engineer in
September 1989 and to Director of Drainage Services in May 1994.
On his retirement, Mr Ng will have completed 36 years of service with the Hong Kong Government.
End
Volume and price movements of external trade in May
In the first five months of 1996, the volume of re-exports increased by 8.8% over the same period last year, while the volume of domestic exports decreased by 6.9%, according to the statistics released today (Thursday) by the Census and Statistics Department.
Taking re-exports and domestic exports together, the volume of total exports increased by 6.1%. Meanwhile, imports increased by 4.9% in volume.
The growth in the volume of trade is derived from the growth in trade values with the effect of price changes being discounted.
As regards price changes over the same period of comparison, the prices of re- exports and domestic exports increased by 0.6% and 1.4% respectively. Import prices increased by 0.3%.
Price changes are reflected by changes in unit value indices, which are compiled based on average unit values or, for certain commodities, based on specific price data.
The terms of trade index, defined as the ratio of total export price index to import price index, recorded an increase of 0.5% in the first five months of 1996 over the same period last year.
Comparing May 1996 with May 1995, the volume of re-exports increased by 4.7%, while that of domestic exports decreased by 12%. Taken together, the volume of total exports increased by 1.8%. Meanwhile, the volume of imports decreased by 1.3%.