The exchange has issued private warnings in recent weeks to try to stop the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (Simex) from launching a Hong Kong-linked futures contract next Monday.

"We will hold our stance," Tsui told Reuters in an interview. He said the exchange had sent letters to all 30 providers of its real time exchange data last week, reminding them not to provide data to anyone launching competing products.

A paid advertisement would be placed in newspapers this week based on a version of that letter, Tsui said. In Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Singapore said they would cooperate on the Simex plan after Singapore prime minister Goh Chok Tong and Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee-hwa met at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forummeeting.

But, when asked if Singapore would now halt the launch of its Hang Seng futures contract, Goh said: "I did not say that. It is something for the private sector to decide."

The Hong Kong stock exchange has been flatly opposed to an index which is being built for Simex by Morgan Stanley Capital International and is very similar to the blue chip Hang Seng Index.

Simex plans to launch its new product, the HiMSCI Hong Kong+Index futures, on November 23 but Tsui says the Hong Kong stock exchange has proprietary rights on the data being used to build the index.

"That is my property," Tsui said. "I am not stopping anybody from anything, but they don't use my assets without my approval or without actually asking."

Reuters Group PLC is among the vendors providing real time data to Morgan Stanley. Tsui said exchange policy was that its price information was considered in the public domain after one hour and anyone could use it. Other markets had other delay times, from 15 minutes to four hours.

Tsuisaid his other big concern was the stability of the Hong Kong stock market. The creation of a derivative product on another exchange and regulated by another set of rules could allow the build-up of long or short positions which threatened the stability of the market, Tsui said.

"We are concerned about the concentration of risk and also the systemic risk that could be caused by various situations," Tsui said. "(For example) someone actually taking a position in both markets and surpassing what we call a position limit, that would cause a concentration of risk," Tsui added.

"If you don't have enough information on hand, you really don't know what the impact on the market, the systemic impact on the market would be," Tsui said.

The exchange was concerned about a build up of speculative pressure such as that seen in August 1998, when open interest in the Hang Seng Index futures exceeded 100,000 contracts.

"When you have a position of that size, I think everybody worries about risk management, whetheropen positions have a right view on the market or not, because it would cause a systemic problem if you don't manage it properly, Tsui said.