[Fair use for education and research purpose only]

Title: New Zealand Firms Spend 596 Mln U.S. Dlr on Y2K Bug

Story Filed: Tuesday, March 28, 2000 1:36 AM EST

WELLINGTON (March 28) XINHUA - New Zealand business spent 596 million U.S. dollars killing the Y2K computer bug with the lion's share spent by big firms, according to the latest survey done by the country's Y2K Readiness Commission.

On average, New Zealand companies with more than 500 staff spent 1.29 million U.S. dollars preparing for the switchover to January 1, 2000 which some feared could lead to widespread computer meltdown, according to the survey, which was published Monday.

In total, big firms spent almost 248 million U.S. dollars and managed to avoid all but minor effects of the bug, even though they were the most vulnerable.

Almost all big businesses found Y2K computer problems and 41 percent said the problems could have been "severe" if they had not been solved before January 1.

Another 34 percent of big firms said they would have faced moderate problems.

Surprisingly, almost half the big firms suffered problems because of the computer bug, but the actual impact was slight. They all avoided severe or moderate problems.

"What they found would have had a big impact," Commission Chairman Basil Logan said in the survey.

Among the big businesses, 71 percent had minor effects and the rest had no problems whatsoever, Logan said.

Copyright ) 2000, Xinhua News Agency, all rights reserved.

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-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), March 28, 2000