SC
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✡.
Poon's remarks.
But first I would like to comment on Mr. Peter
He rightly said that the collapse of the
futures market and indeed it would have collapsed had
the market not closed and had we not put the rescue package
together - would have had enormous and far reaching
repercussions on our stock market, the financial sector,
the strength of the Hong Kong Dollar and the credibility of
Hong Kong as a financial centre. His words sum up exactly
the problems we faced. In his speech Mr. Poon went on to
say that the consequences could have been horrific and I
cannot disagree with him in this assessment.
28.
Mr. Poon and Mr. Desmond Lee have referred to the
moral dimension and to the greed and fear that surface in
times such as these. I entirely agree. Both have spoken
of market integrity. Clearly the most important ingredient
of market integrity is the survival of the market itself,
so that participants can continue to trade normally. It
would have been disastrous, in my view, if we had merely
allowed the futures market to collapse. That would have
done nothing to safeguard the interests of investors in
futures and would have done immense harm to the reputation
of Hong Kong as a financial centre.
FC
l
Of course, Sir, we considered the possible
consequences of allowing the Futures Exchange, the Hong
Kong Futures Guarantee Corporation, and market participants
in the Hang Seng Index futures market to find a solution by
themselves. But it was quite clear to me, although