U.K. Gold Sales - Overwhelming Response to 'Hold Onto Our Gold'.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 30, 1999--

Floods of irate British citizens choked telephone lines yesterday to protest against the Labor government's decision to start selling the U.K.'s gold reserves next Tuesday.

Several thousand callers ran a freephone number to register their disapproval of the gold auctions, which start with 25 tonnes of gold reserves going under the hammer on July 6. Another 390 tonnes are scheduled to be auctioned, leaving Britain ultimately with just 300 tonnes of gold reserves.

Countless other callers were unable to get through as the switchboard of the call centre fielding the calls was swamped. "In 10 years of operation we have never had such a response," said a spokesman for the call centre concerned. At one stage the call centre's switchboard was so heavily log-jammed that its system crashed. Forty operators have been hired to field the calls, which continue to come.

The callers are responding to advertisements in Wednesday's editions of the London newspapers - The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph - placed by the World Gold Council, which works on behalf of many of the world's leading gold mining companies.

The advertisements read: "If you can tell the difference between gold and paper, tell Gordon Brown before it's too late," and exhorted the government to "hold onto our gold." Gordon Brown is the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, the British equivalent of the Secretary of the Treasury.

At one point the number of callers succeeding in getting through was almost 1,000 an hour, a vast number given that the advertisements had only just been published. There were also hundreds of faxes sent in, again protesting against the gold auctions.

"This is a staggering response, far beyond anyone's initial expectations," said Haruko Fukuda, Chief Executive Officer of the World Gold Council." It underlines the fact that the vast majority of the U.K.'s citizens do not want the government to sell Britain's gold reserves, which are the rock upon which this country's economy rests in times of crisis," she added. She said that opinion polls conducted in the U.S., Germany, France and Italy have shown that an overwhelming majorities of those polled are in favor of increasing their nation's gold reserves and believe that gold continues to play a central role in world finance.

Miss Fukuda said that the WGC will be presenting the results of the direct-action vote against gold sales to the British government as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the telephone lines are still open to the British public up to and including Tuesday, July 6, and the Council have urged any British citizen or indeed any British expatriots who want to see the British Treasury reverse its position to make their opinions known.