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On July 25, the Government went ahead with the
sale by tender of the largest ever commercial site
in the Central business district. There were
those who said that there would be no bidders, or
that any bids would be unrealistic. They were
wrong. There were five very competitive bids.
the end the site went for US$350 million.
Citicorp has since purchased a 10%. stake.
In
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Shortly after that one of our big container
terminal operators, HK International Terminals,
arranged in Hong Kong, a syndicated loan for
US$1.35 billion. The syndicate included US,
Japanese and Hong Kong interests. The loan period
extends beyond 1997. The interest rates were
extremely fine and the paper was overscribed on
issue.
And on 1 August the Government let the franchise
on the world's biggest cable television system.
USWest joined the successful consortium which
together pledged US$700 million towards completion
of this massive project.
These are the decisions of rational, prudent businessmen. The banks agree with them. We have issued eleven licences
this year to foreign banks; seven of them since June. They
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Private notes are available after approval.