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Gold/Mining/Energy : An obscure ZIM in Africa traded Down Under -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (830)	5/22/2003 2:29:23 AM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 867

Hong Kong Would Pay If It Switched feer.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Tom Holland Issue cover-dated May 29, 2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The increasing internationalization of the renminbi is being watched nervously in Hong Kong, whose own currency has been pegged to the U.S. dollar since 1984. For Hong Kong, that stability has come at a price. Unable to depreciate its currency during the Asian economic crisis, the territory has suffered persistent deflation ever since, with consumer prices falling 14% since 1998. That hasn't swayed Hong Kong's administration, which has pledged to maintain the peg despite periodic calls to devalue the Hong Kong dollar or to link the local currency to the renminbi as China gradually drops its capital controls and liberalizes its exchange-rate regime. Joining up to the renminbi could spell economic disaster for Hong Kong. With many economists believing the renminbi is undervalued by 40%-50%, the Chinese currency would soar if floated. And if the Hong Kong dollar was hitched to the renminbi instead of the U.S. dollar, it would appreciate too, pricing an already expensive Hong Kong out of the international market and devastating the local economy. "The peg is the key to Hong Kong's economy and very important to Hong Kong's stability," Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa told the Legislative Council this month. "It is of crucial importance to keep the peg."