Educational Use Only;

From the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) December 2 1999

Link: http://www.scmp.com/News/Business/Article/FullText_asp_ArticleID-19991202020422631.asp

Mainland officials claim Y2K problems solved in key sectors MARK O'NEILL in Beijing

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The People's Bank of China has spent 10 billion yuan (about HK$9.3 billion) to help safeguard the mainland's banking system against the Y2K bug. However, the central bank yesterday admitted bank runs occurred in two rural areas while tests on preparedness were going on, the central bank said yesterday.

Chen Jing of the central bank, one of five senior officials from various departments of the government speaking at a news conference to reassure the public that lights will go on, said telephones and aircraft would work at the start of the next millennium.

Zhang Qi, of the Ministry of Information Industry, said: "Major problems have been solved."

"We are fully confident that there will be no major damage to the 18 major industries and sectors of the economy," said Ms Zhang, who heads an inter-government committee in charge of combatting the bug.

Among the major industries are aviation, power, banking, telecommunications, water and gas, and transport.

"But we feel a great sense of pressure," Ms Zhang said. "The time is approaching. We cannot be 100 per cent sure of a safe transition."

Commerce, trade, medicine, health care and public services lagged behind, with some inland areas not paying adequate attention to the problem, in part because they were less computer-dependent than richer coastal areas, she said.

The central bank has spent 10 billion yuan on fighting the bug, including test runs in June, July and September involving one million people and 294,000 bank branches in more than 95 per cent of the country. The test also involved the futures, securities and insurance industries.

Mr Chen said that during the tests there had been bank runs in remote areas of Hubei and Guangxi provinces, but nothing happened elsewhere. He gave no further details.

Asked whether he was afraid runs would occur again, Mr Chen said banks would have ample supplies of cash, with the central bank ready to give support and an increase in loans if needed over the next three months.

"People should be at ease," he said.

"There will be no problem. We will give more information to the public and the clients so that they understand what progress we have made and will have confidence in the banks."

Zhang Xiaolu, of the State Power Corp, said tests had been carried out on more than 60,000 sets of equipment over 10 days from August 31, when clocks were adjusted to simulate January 1 next year, the leap year and September 9.

"We can guarantee the supply of power," she said.

"We can adjust supply through the transmission system and have 20 million to 30 million kilowatt-hours of back-up electricity that is not used."

The national telecommunications system tested all its networks from November 27 to 28, she said.

-- Midas (midas_mulligan_2000@yahoo.com), December 01, 1999

Answers

I keep wondering about the pirated hard and software.

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), December 01, 1999.

Midas:

Any luck yet getting coins from HSBC(sp)?

-- Boy Wonder (robin@the.cave), December 01, 1999.

Boy Wonder,

Yes and no. It turns out that HSBC no longer sells gold coins, but one of their subsidiaries, Hang Seng Bank, does.

I was able to get coins from a Hang Seng branch in Central (which is Hong Kong's answer to Manhattan) but they had a very limited selection. I ended up with 3 X 1 oz Australian Nuggets and 5 X 1 oz Canadian Maple Leafs, which was all they had in stock, other than something from Austria.

Regards

-- Midas (midas_mulligan_2000@yahoo.com), December 01, 1999.

Could it possibly be that some of the rural Chinese do not believe their government's claims of compliancy?

Do you believe your government's similar claims?

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), December 02, 1999.

The US doesn't really depend on China for anything, right? We won't see any effect of their demise -- just ask Kosky or Bill.

Here's the link shown at the top. http://www.scmp.com/News/Business/Article/FullT ext_asp_ArticleID-19991202020422631.asp

-- TA (sea_spur@yahoo.com), December 02, 1999.