(11 April 2000) Hutchison Whampoa Limited (HWL) announced today the introduction of a major B2B e-commerce operation - bigboXX.com.

bigboXX.com is the first of its kind B2B e-commerce portal in Hong Kong specifically dedicated to serving office administration and finance managers. It will include a comprehensive range of office supplies and business services, such as a business reference section and printing, offered at highly competitive prices. The business will initially target Hong Kong but a major development programme will increase products, services and markets for a full Pan Asian offer.

"bigboXX.com is a major new element in the continuously unfolding Hutchison Whampoa
e-commerce strategy. We plan to continue investing in more e-commerce opportunities relating to the Group's various core businesses," said Mr. Dominic Lai, Executive Director, HWL.

bigboXX.com will employ real time procedures offering the customer absolute and immediate control of the order process including access to order tracking and history, inventory control, delivery and pricing information. bigboXX.com will be first made available in mid April to office administration and finance managers within selected corporations. Full scale operations will be available to the public in mid-Summer.

"This is a natural step for us building on the group's substantial retail background, leveraging it's sourcing network and experience within the region," said Sammy Tse, CEO of E-Commerce Resources of HWL. "Our mission is to be recognised as the leading Pan-Asian business portal that delivers increased efficiency, cost-effectiveness and value to our customers via our product, service and information offering."

"We believe the name bigboxx.com is simple and easy to remember and suggests a compact, manageable and reliable service which is precisely what we aim to provide our customers. Our extensive research of the market leads us to believe that we can expect a rapid migration from the traditional ordering methods to this new and exciting approach," said Stephen Winterhalder the Chief Operating Officer of bigboXX.com.

bigboXX.com will not only provide its own major range of products and services but through a network of carefully structured partnerships will in the future also provide access to other service suppliers such as printing, office equipment, cleaning and many more.

Issued by GCI Hong Kong Public Relations, for further information please contact :

bigboXX.com - Rufus Parkinson 2189 7210