Singapore - Thailand, Taiwan and Japan are said to be considering gaming options which would create more "challenges" to casinos in Asia, a published report said on Tuesday.

Singapore - A wholly-owned unit of Singapore's DBS Bank and the Kuwait Finance House have been granted licences to set up Islamic fund management operations in Malaysia, a statement said on Monday.

DBS Asset Management's chief executive officer Deborah Ho said the new entity will structure and distribute Islamic asset management products across Asia "via synergies with DBS and DBS' Islamic Bank of Asia."

Malaysia's Securities Commission granted approval to the two in addition to CIMB-Principal Islamic Asset Management.

"The approval of these three companies will play a catalytic role in the internationalization of our Islamic capital market," The Business Times quoted commission chairman Zarinah Anwar as saying.

Singapore - The major ASEAN economies are likely to deliver higher-than-expected growth this year, but the outlook for 2009 looks challenging, economists said in a published report on Saturday.

Morgan Stanley raised its 2008 growth forecast for Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia to 5.6 per cent from an earlier estimate of 5.5 per cent.

The investment bank kept intact its recently upgraded GDP growth projections for Malaysia at 5.7 per cent and Thailand at 5.6 per cent.

It jacked up the forecast for Indonesia by half a point to 6 per cent and cut Singapore's from 5.1 per cent to 4.3 per cent, said the breakdown in The Business Times.

Singapore -

Singapore - Accounting graduates in Singapore set their sights on the Big Four accounting firms, a study of the profession said on Friday.

Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers have considerably less trouble attracting new hires than the medium-size or smaller counterparts.

Each year about 1,000 new accounting professionals graduate from universities in the city-state. Sixty-one per said they wanted to work for or join one of the Big Four, according to the findings of the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA).

The medium-sized and smaller outfits have been relegated to look elsewhere or hire those with alternative forms of qualifications.

Singapore  - Representatives of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) made progress toward voluntary guidelines aimed at easing fears of political interference, but details of such touchy issues as transpa