Vigil on deregulation

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and Hong Kong Association of Banks (AOB) will keep a watchful eye on the state of competition among banks following the deregulation of interest rates next Sunday.

It is important to ensure the interests of small account holders with little money are safeguarded when genuine competition among banks comes, Acting Financial Secretary Stephen Ip said yesterday.

Real competition means that small depositors can choose whichever banks they like while banks do not join hands to levy unreasonable fees, he explained.

"I believe the AOB would review the execution of the operating guidelines issued to banks as well as ways to handle complaints," Ip said.

Oracle breakthrough

Oracle announced that they have set a new precedent in Internet computing with the availability of Oracle 9i Real Application Clusters, which deliver the first level of reliability and scalability.

Oracle 9i is not a system but introduces several new features that allow customers to perform maintenance tasks against the database in a real-time mode with no impact to the end users of the e-business application.

According to Oracle spokesmen, deploying this new clustered database software will help users to save costs on removing the scalability barrier.

"Oracle has taken an engineering vision, invested in the future and is now delivering an industry breakthrough," said Chuck Rozwat, Executive VP at Oracle.

SINGAPORE

Fuel oil imports set to rise

China's imports of fuel oil in July were expected to exceed June on the back of a seasonal upturn in demand and because of a recent draw in inventories in key consuming areas, Chinese traders said yesterday.

Imports into south China's Guangdong province, the country's largest fuel oil buyer, were forecast to reach 1.1-1.2 million tons in July against an estimated 1 million tons for June, they said.

Guangdong takes roughly 75 per cent of Chinese fuel oil imports.

The July level, however, would still be off the peak seen in April when China bought 1.944 million tons.

Such a high volume has not been seen since at least the beginning of last year.

3.13m visitors to Singapore

More people visited Singapore from January to May than in the same period of 2000 as a jump in Malaysian, Australian and British travellers offset lower arrivals from Indonesia, Japan and the United States.

Total arrivals rose 0.7 per cent to more than 3.13 million in the first five months of 2001, the Singapore Tourism Board said in a statement yesterday.

In May, the number of visitors rose 1.6 per cent from the same month last year, with a 2.7 per cent increase in business travellers counteracting a 1.3 per cent fall in holiday arrivals.

| frontpage | nation | business | HK\Taiwan | snapshots | focus |
| governmentinfo | economic insights | campus life | Shanghai today | metropolitan |