XN000022-1995-03-30 — Page 7

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Public housing flats allocated to 20 fire victims

A total of 20 fire victims of a bedspace apartment at 35 Yeung Uk Road have been allocated single person public housing flats in Tsuen Wan, Kwai Chung and Tsing Yi by the Housing Department today (Thursday).

A spokesman for the Home Affairs Department said these victims were recommended by the Social Welfare Department for compassionate rehousing.

"The Tsuen Wan District Office is co-ordinating the relevant departments in processing applications from other victims," he added.

End/Thursday, March 30, 1995

New series of Effective Exchange Rate Indices

A new series of Effective Exchange Rate Indices (EERI) will be published by the Census and Statistics Department as from Saturday (April 1).

series.

There are two major improvements in the new series of EERI over the old

First, owing to significant changes in Hong Kong's trade patterns in recent years, the trade weights based on the average trade patterns of 1984 to 1986 require updating. To reflect the more recent trade patterns, a set of new trade weights, based on the average trade patterns of 1991 to 1993, has been selected for compiling the new EERI series from 1991 onwards.

Second, in view of the increasing significance of Thailand and Malaysia in their bilateral trade with Hong Kong and in world trade, the basket of currencies has been enlarged to cover the Thai baht and the Malaysian dollar for compiling the new EERI as from 1991.

In addition to the above two improvements, the base period of the series will be changed from October 24-28, 1983 to November 1983.