Results of non-competitive tender for Exchange Fund Notes No. 2705

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced today (13 May 2005) that the portion of the 2-year Exchange Fund Notes (Issue Number 2705) available for non-competitive tender has been over-subscribed. The subscription price of the non-competitive tender has been set at 99.74 (annualised yield of 2.73%), which was the lowest accepted price for the portion of the Notes reserved for competitive tender by Recognised Dealers.

Public subscription for the portion of the Notes available for non-competitive tender closed at 2:00 p.m. on 11 May 2005. Over 1,600 investors have submitted applications through the seven Distributors appointed by the HKMA. The total application amount stood at HK$361.4 million, which was 20% above the amount of HK$300 million available for non-competitive tender.

Since the amount of the Notes available for non-competitive tender have been oversubscribed, according to the allotment rules specified in the Information Memorandum of the Exchange Fund Note Programme, each application will be allotted at least a minimum of HK$50,000 of the Notes. Notes remaining will be allocated to each application on a pro rata basis to the remaining quantity of Notes applied for by each application, rounded down to the nearest whole Note and in the case of Notes remaining after rounding, by ballot. Retail investors can check with the Retail Exchange Fund Notes Distributors through which they applied for the Notes the amount of Notes allotted to them.

For further enquiries, please contact:

Thomas Chan, Senior Manager (Press), at 2878 1480 or
Hing-Fung Wong, Resource Co-ordinator, at 2878 1802

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
13 May 2005