Vienna/Paris  - Air France-KLM has dropped its bid for Austrian Airlines AG, a spokesman said in Paris on Tuesday.

With the French-Dutch airline out of the race for buying the 42.75-per-cent stake of the Austrian flag carrier currently owned by the state, German Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Russian carrier S7 are likely the only other contenders.

However, Air France-KLM had informed Austrian Airlines that it was interested in continuing talks, the spokesman said.

Earlier, Air France-KLM had complained about the high price and a lack of transparency regarding the Austrian company's books.

Vienna - The World Bank Group has launched a new office in Vienna on Tuesday to help a wider range of countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia attract direct foreign investment.

Expanding its previous work in Vienna that was focused on the West Balkan region, the World Bank's investment climate advisory service FIAS is expanding to countries such as the Ukraine and Armenia, programme coordinator Margit Mischkulnig said.

"It's going deeper and wider," she said.

Vienna - As Austria's parliament passed bail-out measures for banks Monday, some of the country's financials institutions said they would make use of the government's capital injections and guarantees for inter-bank credits.

All five parties in parliament unanimously approved the package worth 100 billion euros (134 billion dollars).

As the global financial crisis has led to a lack of trust between banks, the parliament also set aside 75 billion euros as government guarantees for inter-bank lending.

Vienna - Austria's Social Democratic Party (SPOe) and the mainstream conservative People's Party (OeVP) agreed Monday in Vienna to a schedule for coalition talks, after their previous joint cabinet had broken apart in July.

The economic and financial crisis and the death of far-right leader Joerg Haider on October 11 sped up the conservatives' decision to start talks with the Social Democrats, who won the September national elections with 29 per cent of the votes.