Suicide rate in Hong Kong has fallen to the lowest level in two decades due to improved economy and effective prevention measures, local press reported Friday.

The number of people who committed suicide in 2004 was 1,053, a drop of 18 percent over the previous year, according to the figures issued by the Jockey Club Center for Suicide Research and Prevention.

The year of 2004 is the last year for which full data is available and the first year with a year-on-year decline in suicide rate since 1996.

This brings the suicide rate down from a 2003 peak of 18.6 suicides per 100,000 people to 15.3, director of the research center was quoted by South China Morning Post as saying.

However, Hong Kong's suicide rate is still higher than the world average of 15 per 100,000.

"At present, our rate of 15.3 is about 50 percent higher than in the United Kingdom and the United States," said the director Paul Yip Siu-fai.

Furthermore, Yip warned that the drop of suicide rate of people aged 15 to 24 was "only a marginal dip".

Attributing the low suicide rate partly to Hong Kong's robust economic growth, Yip called on more social and medical measures to keep low the number of people committing suicide.

"This reduction of 18 percent in the rate is something we have never seen in Hong Kong before. It shows that people can help and make a difference," he said.