Dear Sir,

I was recently interviewed by one of your reporters and misquoted. I did not say that I had seen people coming into the bank with gold. I fact, to the best of my knowledge this has never happened.

What did I say is that, in the absence of security arrangements available in other countries such as mortgages, liens, etc we have discussed internally the possibility of lending against gold physically deposited in our vault. We have not done this type of business to date, nor have we even decided to do so as a policy matter.

I would appreciate your publishing this letter for the record.

- Michael C. Stephen, Cambodia Mekong Bank, Phnom Penh