The Exchange Fund Investment Ltd (EFIL), created to manage government's portfolio, disclosed details of its holdings after its first board meeting in Hong Kong on Monday.

Ever since the (Hong Kong) government intervened, the public has been urging it to reveal the details of its action, reports China's state-run China Daily.

Hong Kong's financial secretary Donald Tsang said the government chose to disclose the information now because there was no sign of double play in the current market.

EFIL chairman Yang Ti Liang said the company was under no legal obligation to fully disclose its portfolio, but it was `appropriate in the interest of the public.'

EFIL disclosed the huge share portfolio it amassed during the August marketintervention.

It spent $118.13 billion on its defence of the dollar peg and had since made a paper profit of $28.42 billion, had bought shares in all 33 blue-chip Hang Seng Index firms and had spent the most on HSBC Holdings -- $40.77 billion.

Yang said the company would disclose any change in its shareholding of 1 per cent or more in the three companies in which it holds more than 10 per cent, in accordance with disclosure rules.

"This will place the government in exactly the same position as any other private sector investor in terms of disclosure," Yang said.

Tsang said the government will not immediately sell the stocks it acquired in August and would not let its shareholdings interfere in decision-making.

Investors fear that if the government makes a haste to cash in the shares, the stabilising Hong Kong stock market will face turmoil again.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong retailers reported a 20 per cent drop in sales in August -- the steepest decline this year -- as consumer confidence was underminedfurther by the instability of the Hong Kong currency, government figures reveal.

Government's intervention in the stock market in the same month added further woes to already fragile spending sentiment, undermined by wage reductions and high unemployment, market watchers said.

They said the drop in retail sales exceeded their forecasts of between 14 and 16 per cent, indicating that Hong Kong's recession might have worsened.

Hong Kong retail management association chairman Philip Ma King-Huen said, "If the (retail) market continues to do badly, full-year retail sales are likely to fall below our estimates," he said.