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4. Singapore is not, however, relaxing its own banking requirements in order to attract financial interests from Hong Kong. Mr Theodoulou told me of an interest they had promoted which had fallen foul at the last hurdle of an MAS refusal to allow money
to be channelled through an offshore centre (apparently Jersey, though Bermuda and the British Virgin Isles are regarded the same way), because this would have been outside MAS's regulatory control. It was difficult, however, for anyone to say that Singapore had not got it right with the BCCI scandal causing considerable reverberations in Hong Kong and the realisation that Singapore had simply refused to licence BCCI here.
5.
Some comparison was made between Jardine's move offshore to Bermuda and the running down of some of its local interests, plus its move into property and the retail business (and out of trading) and the quieter, more solid and less noisy line taken by another great trading house, Swires, who are making no waves, staying firmly in Hong Kong and continuing to do well.
26 July, 1991
10
G A DUGGAN
Sugapore
COMMERCIAL IN CONFIDENCE
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