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In response to press enquiries, a Government spokesman said that the Financial Secretary, Mr Donald Tsang, welcomed the agreement-in-principle reached today between the creditor banks and the Guangdong Provincial Government on the debt restructuring of the Guangdong Enterprises, and said it was good news before Christmas. A settlement of this landmark case would do much to allay concerns of the financial community in Hong Kong and international investors in the Mainland. Mr Tsang believed that this agreement had been the result of much hard work of the banks concerned, the Mainland authorities, in particular Vice Governor of Guangdong, Mr Wang Qishan and their respective advisers.

End/Thursday, December 16, 1999

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