Bloomberg Establishes First Benchmark Bond Fixings

Bloomberg Establishes First Benchmark Bond Fixings

May 18, 2006

-- China's Leading Banks Join with Bloomberg to form China Fixed Income Forum

    HONG KONG and NEW YORK, May 18 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/--
Bloomberg, the leading global provider of data, analytics
and news to the financial community, today announced that
it has established the first China bond fixings in
cooperation with the largest Chinese bond market
participants.  The China bond prices can be found on the
BLOOMBERG PROFESSIONAL(R) service via the function CFIF
< GO >.

    Bloomberg, along with thirteen leading market
participants, has formed the China Fixed Income Forum to
establish the first standard market methodology for
selecting benchmark bonds for the Chinese bond market.  The
China Fixed Income Forum has agreed to a common set of
criteria for the pricing of fixed and floating rate bonds
issued by the China Development Bank. Similarly, the China
Fixed Income Forum will provide a single standard by which
to evaluate and price China Sovereign Bonds.  This
fixed-income market standard will apply to both short-term
and long-duration fixed-income securities.  Bloomberg uses
these benchmark bond prices to calculate the market
standard par coupon and spot rate curves for the China
Sovereign and China Development Bank Bonds. These curves
are then used by Bloomberg to create the first set of daily
modeled mark to market pricing for illiquid China Sovereign
and China Development Bank Bonds.

    The thirteen Chinese bond market participants include
the Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, Bank of
Communication, Bank of Shanghai, China Construction Bank,
China Development Bank, China Merchants Bank, China Postal
Savings & Remittance, Industrial & Commercial Bank
of China, Industrial Bank of China, Nanjing City Commercial
Bank, Shenzhen Development Bank Co. Ltd., and the Tianjin
City Commercial Bank.

    "In establishing the China Fixed Income Forum, the
thirteen leading bond market participants in China and
Bloomberg together have created the first common framework
for selecting and evaluating benchmark bonds for this
important market," said Gerard Francis of Bloomberg. 
"The China Fixed Income Forum and the daily mark to
market prices represent an important milestone in the
evolution of the Chinese bond market, and underscores
Bloomberg's continuing commitment to the development of
Asia's financial markets."

    About Bloomberg

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    For more information, please contact:

     Judith Czelusniak 
     Bloomberg LP
     Tel:   [phone] 
     Email: [e-mail]

SOURCE  Bloomberg