XN000022-1996-04-29 — Page 6

5.

Govt publishes 50th Anniversary Edition of Annual Report

The Government today (Monday) published the 50th Anniversary Edition of the Hong Kong Annual Report, entitled Hong Kong 1996, which carries several special features marking the occasion.

In nearly 500 pages of words and pictures, Hong Kong 1996 covers the economy, political development towards 1997 and other activities that made up the essence of the year just past.

It includes a Review Chapter written by the recently retired Senior Member of the Executive Council, the Baroness Dunn, who comments on the necessary ingredients for Hong Kong's success.

"With all the official facts and figures of 1995 included, the yearbook is the authoritative source of information on Hong Kong and an invaluable reference book for academics, businessmen and anyone interested in the territory," a Government spokesman said.

The spokesman said only one-fifth of Hong Kong's population could have any recollection of life in the territory 50 years ago, when it was recovering from the destruction of World War II. However, the facts were recorded in the first Hong Kong Annual Report, which was published in March 1947 and covered events from Liberation to the end of 1946.

"A Foreword in the 1996 yearbook describes what life was like in the immediate post-war period and how Hong Kong developed subsequently," he said.

The continuing problem of Kai Tak Aerodrome - 'never very satisfactory' appears throughout the half-century of yearbooks. In 1947, it was deemed totally inadequate and liable to cramp Hong Kong's development as an air centre.

The following year, Hong Kong experienced the world's first case of attempted air piracy. Some of the 23 passengers in a Catalina flying boat en route from Macau belonged to a gang which tried to rob the rest of those on board. The plane crashed, killing the four crew and 22 of the passengers.

Photographs provide startling contrasts across the years; aircraft landing at right angles to the current Kai Tak runway; Tide Cove turning into Sha Tin; Victoria Park filling Causeway Bay; Kowloon Peninsula more than doubling in size.