(Hong Kong, 18 July 2002) Tradelink Electronic Commerce Limited and Guangdong Nanfang Communication Group Corporation signed a Memorandum of Understanding today to jointly develop the "China - Hong Kong Cargo Manifest Interface" which will help make available to river carriers a more efficient and convenient electronic cargo manifest service.

Tradelink is Hong Kong's largest electronic service provider, with an impressive customer base of 53,000 companies. Tradelink's current electronic service portfolio includes Restrained Textiles Export Licence, Import and Export Trade Declaration, Certificate of Origin, etc. Guangdong Nanfang is a subsidiary of Guangdong Telecommunication and a key development enterprise in the Guangdong province.

It is in Tradelink's plan to roll out the electronic cargo manifest service in the fourth quarter of 2002. However, concerns have been raised in respect to double handling of cargo data by the river carriers to meet the requirements of both Hong Kong and Mainland authorities. To address those concerns, Tradelink has come into agreement with Guangdong Nanfang, the Mainland service provider, to jointly work out a one-stop interface for electronic submission of manifests.

The "China - Hong Kong Cargo Manifest Interface" is a common interface process which makes it possible for river carriers to input just once the cargo manifest data and send to Tradelink and Guangdong Nanfang, without the need of duplication of data entry.

Mr. Justin Yue, CEO of Tradelink, said, "Tradelink is honoured to work hand in hand with Guangdong Nanfang Communication Group Corporation on the Cargo Manifests interface. I am sure today's collaboration is only the beginning. I have every confidence to say that our two organisations are set to work more closely to promote cross-border trade in the region with the development of more value-added transaction services."

For press enquiries, please contact Tradelink (Corporate Communications) on 2599 1686.