Mondo Visione Worldwide Financial Markets Intelligence

FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index:

Interruption In Some Stock Exchange Of Hong Kong Participants’ Network Connections

Date 12/10/2004

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx) noted at 14:42 today (Tuesday) interruption in the connection between certain SEHK* Participants’ trading devices and the Third Generation of the Automatic Order Matching and Execution System, AMS/3. The network interruption lasted for about eight minutes before recovery started at 14:50. Operations of a total of 220 circuits or 168 SEHK Participants were affected during the network interruption. By 14:58, the vast majority of the affected SEHK Participants had resumed their connection to the AMS/3.

The AMS/3 host system continued to operate normally during the connection interruption. HKEx is following up with the network provider PCCW and has requested that a full investigation of the incident be conducted. Upon completion of this investigation, a detailed report will be provided to HKEx.