BELGIAN ECU COIN ISSUE PRICED, SALE DATE SET

  A limited Belgian issue of silver Ecu
  coins with a face value of five Ecus will go on sale from March
  23 at a price of 500 Belgian francs each, a Finance Ministry
  spokesman said.
      Gold Ecu coins with a face value of 50 Ecus will be sold
  from the same day. The spokesman told Reuters the price for
  these would be fixed just before they go on sale but was likely
  to be between 8,500 and 9,000 francs.
      At least two mln silver coins and several hundreds of
  thousands of the gold coins will be minted, he said. They will
  be sold both in Belgium and abroad.
      The coins will be the first ever denominated in the Ecu,
  the "basket" comprised of the 12-nation European Community's
  currencies except the Spanish peseta and the Portuguese escudo.
      The issue is being made to mark the 30th anniversary of the
  EC's founding Treaty of Rome this month. Finance Minister Mark
  Eyskens, who currently presides over the EC's council of
  economic and finance ministers, has called the issue a
  political act of symbolic value which aimed to make the
  Community's goal of monetary integration more concrete.
      The coins will be legal tender in Belgium but most demand
  is expected to come from coin collectors.
  

