New Delhi, Oct. 20 : The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has welcomed the Reserve Bank of India’s decision to cut the repo rate by 100 base points to bring it down to eight percent.

Director General of CII Chandrajit Banerjee described the announcement as a step in the right direction.

"We are thankful to the RBI Governor for agreeing to this suggestion made by CII in view of the credit crisis that was starting to manifest in the Indian system, following the global liquidity crunch," he said.

Hong Kong - Banks in Hong Kong, China and Macau have been asked to help finance construction of a 37-billion-Hong-Kong-dollar (4.74-billion-US-dollar) bridge across the Pearl River estuary, government officials said Monday.

The institutions, including some of the region's largest financial players including HSBC, Standard Chartered and the Bank of China, have been approached to see if they are willing to partially bankroll the 35-kilometre-long link.

Singapore - Though the international financial system is still under significant stress, Singapore's markets remain stable and its banks face no funding difficulties in the interbank market, parliament was told Monday.

Nevertheless, the government decided last week to provide a guarantee of 150 billion Singapore dollars (101.62 billion US dollars) for deposits of individuals and non-bank customers in Singapore-based banks.

"If Singapore had not introduced a similar guarantee, there was a real risk that depositors would have shifted some of their deposits out of Singapore banks, to banks in other jurisdictions which guarantee deposits," Trade and Industry Minister Lim Hng Kiang said.