Tokyo - Asia-Pacific stocks on Thursday mirrored the overnight plunges on Wall Street as credit dried up and fears rose that more financial companies would fail.

The biggest drops in the region were seen in Hong Kong, whose benchmark Hang Seng Index fell as much as 7.38 per cent before recovering; the Philippines at 4.25 per cent; and Thailand, which regained some ground after suffering losses of more than 5 per cent during the trading day.

Tokyo - The Bank of Japan (BOJ) injected 1.5 trillion yen (14.3 billion dollars) into the money market Thursday to stabilize the markets affected by the fallout from the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers earlier this week.

Japan's central bank moved on its emergency operation for the third day.

BOJ pumped 5.5 trillion yen into the markets over the last two days, while banks said potential losses from the collapse were relatively small as they had limited their exposure.

Tokyo - As more Japanese companies affiliated with collapsed US investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday, the Japanese government said the nation's markets would only suffer limited negative effects from the fallout.

Sunrise Finance and Lehman Brothers Commercial Mortgage filed for bankruptcy Wednesday with total liabilities of around 7 billion dollars, news reports said.

Tokyo - The Bank of Japan (BOJ) decided to maintain its key short-term interest rate unchanged at the end of a two-day meeting on Wednesday.

The bank's policy board voted unanimously to forego another interest rate hike amid the Japanese economy's sluggish growth.

The interest rate has remained fixed since February 2007, when it was raised from 0.25 per cent.

"Economic growth has been sluggish against the backdrop of high energy and materials prices and weaker growth in exports," the bank said in a statement.

Tokyo - Tokyo stocks gained ground early Wednesday on the US Federal Reserve's announcement to help struggling AIG insurance company.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average surged 241.06 points, or 2.08 per cent, to 11,850.78.

The broader Topix index was also up 14.4 points, or 1.29 per cent, to 1,131.97.

The market sentiment improved after the US Federal Reserve announced that it will lend up to 85 billion dollars to AIG to prevent it from falling into bankruptcy.