The amount of $ billion has been fully subscribed by a diversified group of investors. They include not only banks, but also institutional investors and fund managers. The participation of these latter groups is especially welcome as a sign of the potential breath of the investor base for good  BIS Review 47/2003  1  quality Hong Kong dollar debt securities. The opportunity has been taken to offer more choices to investors. These are explained in the technical note attached to the press release. The CEO of HKMC will be happy to explain these to you and answer any questions that you may have, later in the press briefing. What I would like to do here in conclusion is to thank HSBC, the Lead Manager of this MBS issue for marketing it so effectively. I would also like to thank the Senior Co-lead Managers, Bank of China, Bank of Communications, Bank of East Asia, International Bank of Asia, Mitsubishi Securities (HK) and Co-lead Manager, BNP Paribas for their staunch support. The HKMC team has enjoyed working with all of you towards this successful result, and we look forward to your continuing active participation in future HKMC issues. Thank you. 2  BIS Review 47/2003
Economists have long found it difficult to explain why, given the risks of equity investments, governments should need to offer high real rates of return on their bonds in a world of low and stable inflation. So perhaps the world capital market is returning to an era of low real rates more akin to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. If annual market rates on index-linked securities in the UK were to remain around 1%, then, with a 2% inflation target, the level of official  2  BIS Review 9/2006  interest rates required to balance overall demand and supply would, in the long run, be lower than was thought necessary in the past few decades. Even if we knew that long-term interest rates were low because of a change in the balance of saving and investment in the world, judging the appropriate level of interest rates would be a challenge. But monetary policy is made more difficult by the fact that there is another, very different, explanation of recent low long-term interest rates. Rapid growth of money - as central banks have kept official interest rates very low - has helped to push up asset prices as investors “search for yield”. Data from the IMF suggest that world broad money in 2003 and 2004 was growing at its fastest rate since the late 1980s.