Editor's note: This is the complete text of a Bloomberg News story which was based on an interview with Premier Pamela Gordon at the news agency's Park Avenue offices on Tuesday morning in New York City.

*** Bermuda Premier Pamela Gordon said she expects to lure technology companies to the Island nation, expanding the traditional economic base from its "twin pillars'' of tourism and finance.

Gordon, 42, Premier since March 27 when Premier David Saul retired, is on a four-day economic mission to the US, her first introduction as head of government to international investors.

"We're in the business of helping people to make money,'' she told the Bloomberg Forum. At the same time, the Premier said she wants to ensure that international economies don't ruin the Atlantic island's "pristine'' environment.

While that probably rules out factories by Motorola Inc. or Siemens AG, it doesn't rule out computer-related industries that use the "intellectual capital'' of Bermuda's 59,000 citizens, she said.

For example, if Franklin-Templeton Mutual Funds group, a company already based in Bermuda, was to shift data-processing operations from St. Petersburg, Florida, "that would be a pretty wonderful thing,'' Gordon said.

The daughter of labour organiser Edward Fitzgerald Gordon had been in business before her appointment to the Bermuda Senate in 1990. She won an Assembly seat for her United Bermuda Party in 1993.

Now she's hawking development of a 3,000-acre property that was used by US and Canadian forces as military bases until 1995. That's ten percent of Bermuda's land mass, so it needs to be developed carefully, Gordon said. Meanwhile, the Premier said there's "a strong possibility'' that a large multi-national company will set up operations in Bermuda by December 31. She declined to identify prospects.

The self-governing British-controlled island offers businesses the same general business rules that apply in Britain along with US sanction for registering offshore subsidiaries. For the past 50 years, these rules have lured banks and insurance companies because they are exempt from home-country tax laws and underwriting requirements.

Among large companies registered in Bermuda is Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd., a diversified holding company now with market value of $6 billion that changed its domicile to Bermuda from Hong Kong in 1984.

By the time Gordon became Premier, more than 10,200 international business were registered in Bermuda, compared with 9,600 five months earlier.

With the Bermuda Stock Exchange Index up more that 46 percent in the past year and gross domestic product growth at about four-and-a-half percent, Gordon said she hopes to attract more investment quickly.

"We offer everything you can get in Singapore and then some,'' she said.

"From an aesthetic standpoint, you can't beat it.'' The Premier, who plans to complete both masters of business administration and law studies with degrees from two separate Canadian universities in the next six months, also said she'll run for election in her own right by next October.

"I don't have a choice,'' said Gordon, who dubs herself "the people's Premier.'' She declined, though, to specify what date she'll call for the election.

"It will be very soon,'' she said.

PREMIER GORDON -- "Strong possibility'' a large multi-national company will set up operations in Bermuda by December 31.