The government is on a roll and is making concerted efforts to bring India’s economic growth back on track.

Mannheim, Germany - Shares in German chemical giant BASF surged Thursday - despite the company reporting a steep drop in 2009 first quarter sales and profits, as the economic slowdown began to bite.

At 12.2 billion euros (16.1 billion dollars), sales were 23 per cent lower than in the first quarter of 2008, primarily due to persistently weak demand, the company said in a statement.

Vienna - Austria-based Erste Group Bank saw its net profits drop 26.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2009, the bank said Thursday, reflecting its high exposure to loans to central and Eastern Europe.

The bank, one of Central and Eastern Europe's biggest lenders, made a net profit of 232.1 million euros (306.7 million dollars) in the first three months of the current year, down from 315.6 million euros in the same period of the previous year.

With the exception of the Ukraine, all of Erste's Central and Eastern European operations were profitable.

Stockholm - Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson on Thursday posted an increase in first-quarter 2009 sales - but net income fell dropped dramatically due to losses attributed to its joint venture Sony Ericsson.

Pre-tax income in the quarter totalled 3.3 billion kronor (400 million dollars), a 25 per cent decline year-on-year but better than analysts had predicted.

Net income - after losses and restructuring charges - dropped 30 per cent to 1.8 billion kronor while sales increased 12 per cent to 49.6 billion kronor, Ericsson said.

Taipei - The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, saw its first-quarter profits fall 94.5 cent due to the global slump, TSMC said Thursday.

Net profits were 1.56 billion Taiwan dollars (47 million dollars), down 94.5 per cent year-on-year.

TSMC's revenues for the first three months of 2009 totalled 39.5 billion Taiwan dollars, down 54.8 per cent year-on-year.

Tokyo - Japanese electronics company Toshiba Corp on Thursday announced its US unit Westinghouse Electric Co would acquire a 52-per-cent stake in Nuclear Fuel Industries (NFI) to increase competitiveness in bidding for construction of nuclear power plants.

Westinghouse plans to buy a 26-per-cent stake each from Furukawa Electric Co and Sumitomo Electric Industries, which together own Nuclear Fuel Industries, for about
10 billion yen (103 million dollars) in May, Toshiba said.