li gets a grip on 3G Last night Cheung Kong chairman Li Ka-shing boasted to journalists staking out his company's annual banquet that he had a new toy - a Hutchison 3G phone, which he said would be operational today. Considering his company's 3G handset supply shortage in Britain, perhaps he could post it to London. RACE TO THE BOTTOM Bank of China (Hong Kong) and Citibank wasted little time in following HSBC's courageous decision to lower interest rates from 0.01 per cent to 0.001 per cent while, of course, keeping their prime lending rate unchanged at 5 per cent. But give credit to Standard Chartered and DBS for refusing to follow suit. StanChart chief executive Peter Wong Tung-shun explained that further cuts were not in the interest of bank customers - especially the disabled, the elderly and welfare recipients. Our sentiments exactly. NO REST FOR THE WEARY The Hong Kong Monetary Authority rang yesterday. Were we interested in attending a background briefing on the Hong Kong dollar peg? Of course we were. Then we found out the briefing was scheduled for Saturday morning, when our Markets Editor expects to be nursing her post-birthday party hangover. The HKMA explained that it picked Saturday morning on the assumption reporters were too busy chasing real news during the work week to spare the time. If only. But we'll be there.
