From Senator Philip Ozouf, Minister for Treasury and Resources.

THE article on the new £100 pound note (JEP, 2 November) started by saying: ‘A new £100 note costing more than £250,000 to the taxpayer is to be printed to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee’.

There is no ‘cost’ to the taxpayer, it is the opposite. The £256,000 will be an income-producing investment, which is made by a separate and profit making Currency Fund.

As shown in States accounts, at the end of 2010, there was over £96 million of Jersey cash in circulation which produced a return of £1.8 million, in the year, even at current low investment returns.

The new note will add to this. On even the most modest estimates of less than 5,000 £100 notes issued, this investment will produce a positive return for taxpayers.

It is a shame that the £100 note, which forms part of a series of initiatives to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, was portrayed in a way that may raise concerns with Islanders.

The issuance of the £100 note, the design of which includes Equanimity, the holographic portrait of Her Majesty, will be released shortly. It will produce an investment return for taxpayers, not a loss.