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To: goldsnow who wrote (8206)	3/10/1998 9:27:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116764

China customs seize 128 kg of smuggled gold 05:16 a.m. Mar 10, 1998 Eastern BEIJING, March 10 (Reuters) - Airport customs officials in China's eastern Jinan city have seized 128 kg of gold being smuggled into the country, the China Trade News said on Tuesday. The smuggled gold, worth 11.26 million yuan ($1.36 million) at domestic prices, was the largest seizure by Chinese customs since the 1949 Communist takeover, the newspaper said. The smuggled gold was uncovered by customs officials at the Jinan International Airport when checking the luggage of four women from Hong Kong, it said. Jinan is the provincial capital of eastern Shandong province, a leading gold-producing region. The gold ingots, cast in Australia and Hong Kong, had a purity of 99.99 percent, it said. Widening differences in gold prices between international and domestic markets following the Asian financial crisis have increased the incentives for smugglers, the newspaper said, without giving further details. Last month, the central bank cut its gold purchase price to 80.5 yuan per gram ($300.66 per troy ounce) from 88 yuan per gram and its sales price to 82.8 yuan from 94.32 yuan due to sharp falls on the world market. Gold was trading at $294.90 per troy ounce in London on Tuesday. ($1.0 - 8.3 yuan) -- Beijing Newsroom (86) 10-6532-1921; Fax (86) 10-6532-4978 -- Email: beijing.newsroom+reuters.com ^REUTERS@

To: goldsnow who wrote (8206)	3/10/1998 9:46:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116764

Why the gold industry will survive afr.com.au

To: goldsnow who wrote (8206)	3/10/1998 9:50:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116764

Jakarta's stalled reforms frustrate IMF By Colleen Ryan, Washington The stand-off between the IMF and Indonesia could undermine efforts to stem the financial turmoil in Asia if it were not resolved soon, the IMF's managing director, Mr Michel Camdessus, warned yesterday. Speaking at an IMF conference on liberalisation of international capital flows, Mr Camdessus maintained a particularly hard line on Indonesia commenting, in answer to questions, "We still believe that if this problem is not resolved soon, the whole thing is at risk." Mr Camdessus' remarks were made against the background of continued strong support by the US Administration for the IMF's reform program. The US ambassador to Indonesia, Mr J Stapleton Roy, has returned to Washington for discussions following the apparently unsuccessful Jakarta visit of presidential envoy Mr Walter Mondale last week. The IMF was to have approved a second tranche of $US3 billion in financial assistance to Indonesia next week but has delayed this until next month at the earliest. Mr Camdessus confirmed the delay yesterday, pointing to the absence of an Indonesian Cabinet with which to finalise economic plans. "It will take certainly until April until we are ready," Mr Camdessus said, referring to IMF executive board action on further funding. He added that a long list of structural measures was needed in Indonesia under the reform program agreed with the IMF earlier this year. Mr Camdessus emphasised that the issue of a currency board was not the only matter causing problems. "We are a little bit frustrated that the kind of diversion coming from the debate on the surrealistic proposal of the currency board has in some ways occupied too much the minds while important things have to be done on issues like banking and restructuring corporate debt. "I must say that particularly in view of the very high risk of human suffering and the risk of ethnic strife . . . we want to do everything possible to help this country." Yesterday's conference in Washington was dominated by calls for changes to the architecture of the international financial system. However, while the speakers were agreed on the need for change they were noticeably short on prescriptions for measures to improve the system. Mr Larry Summers, deputy-secretary of the US Treasury, warned the conference that: "We cannot leave ourselves to face the kind of dilemma the world community faced [late last year] between chaos, confusion and contagion on the one hand, and large bailouts on the other. "We all need to look at the international financial system and do what we can to change it so that we don't have crises of the kind we are now experiencing or the kind we experienced in Mexico or the kind we experience in the European exchange rate mechanism every three years." The conference was called to discuss liberalisation of international capital movements and, in particular, the expanded role of the IMF. Last September, at the annual meeting of the IMF in Hong Kong, the board of governors agreed that it was time to "add a new chapter to the Bretton Woods agreement" and amend the IMF's articles of agreement to make liberalisation of capital movements one of the purposes of the fund. Mr Camdessus addressed the issue of whether the perceived benefits of free capital markets still made sense in the light of the Asian crisis. He argued that the problems of Indonesia, Korea and Thailand arose not because they had opened their capital accounts but because the countries with the most open capital accounts in the region, Hong Kong and Singapore, were among the most successful in dealing with the crisis. "The difficulties arose from the macro-economic environment and institutional setting in which they opened their capital accounts and the way in which measures to open their capital accounts were sequenced with other reforms," he said.

To: goldsnow who wrote (8206)	3/11/1998 2:26:00 AM
From: Abner Hosmer	Respond to of 116764

Indonesia's IMF stand-off sends commodity shivers biz.yahoo.com >>In metals, analysts did not foresee any Indonesian economic meltdown affecting the country's copper mines. Indonesia has two copper mines, the giant Freeport Indonesia Grasberg/Erstberg mine which produced around 500,000 tonnes of copper in 1997 and the $1.9 billion Batu Hijau copper and gold mine being developed by Newmont Gold (NGC - news) and Sumitomo Corp (8053.T). The ore deposits are low-cost but equity investors have assigned a large discount to the shares because of the remote location and perceived economic and political risk, Salomon Smith Barney said in its latest Weekly Prospector report. Billiton Metals Ltd analyst Angus MacMillan said in previous cases of economic collapse base metal industries were usually unaffected and mines continued to operate. ''As we saw in Russia...the base metals industry is usually the last to go. I would think the mining sector would be fairly stand-alone,'' MacMillan said.<<