In Brief

Pan-democrats to protest over democracy report

Pan-democrats plan to stage a rally before Christmas Day, a few days ahead of the National People's Congress Standing Committee meeting, to express concern over the government's report on political reform, which was submitted to the central government on Wednesday. Details of the rally will be confirmed next week. Letters will be sent to Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen and the central government, calling for a meeting and demanding that the NPC Standing Committee avoid making a decision based simply on what they say are the misleading conclusions in the report. In response, a spokesman for the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau defended the conclusions, saying they reflected the main comments that had been put forward by the public concerning the Green Paper.

631 requests made under freedom of information code

The government received 631 requests under the Code on Access to Information in the third quarter of this year, a Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau spokesman said. Since the code's debut in March 1995, there have been 23,477 requests, of which 20,995, or about 90 per cent, were met, either in full or in part, the bureau said. Only 461 requests, or 2 per cent, were rejected. A further 1,113 requests, or 5 per cent, were subsequently withdrawn. For 812 requests, the government did not have the requested information. As at September 30 this year, 53 requests were still being processed by the government. In the third quarter of this year, the Ombudsman received just one complaint relating to the code.

Re-exports rise 9.5pc

The volume of Hong Kong's re-exports rose 9.5 per cent year on year in October, while domestic exports fell 10.6 per cent, the Census and Statistics Department said. The volume of total exports increased 8.5 per cent. For imports, the volume rose 12.1 per cent. Over the first 10 months of this year, the volume of re-exports rose 10.9 per cent, while domestic exports plunged 23.1 per cent. The volume of total exports of goods grew 8.9 per cent, while that of imports rose 10.6 per cent.