SPA
 
Hong Kong, Jul 8: Fifty million plastic, washable bank notes went into circulation in Hong Kong on Monday in a move to combat counterfeiters and produce longer-lasting notes.

The new hi-tech 10 Hong Kong dollar bills, worth $1,27 each, are designed to be more durable and more difficult for counterfeiters to fake.

Monday's launch of the new notes saw queues forming at banks in the city of 6,9 million to get specimens of the new notes with collectable, low-issue numbers.

The launch of the new notes, which may be extended to higher denomination notes in future, comes after HK$11 million 1 000 notes were withdrawn from circulation earlier this year because of a counterfeiting scare.

More than half of the HK$1 000 notes issued by HSBC between 2000 and 2002 were withdrawn after the discovery of around 2 000 of high-quality fakes.

Monetary officials refused calls to withdraw all HK$1 000 at the height of the counterfeiting dilemma, saying that to do so would seriously undermine confidence in Hong Kong's currency.

Hong Kong's bank notes come under intermittent assault from counterfeiters in China who infiltrate the wealthy former British colony's money supply with increasingly sophisticated fakes