Nicosia, Mar 17: The Federation of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Chambers of Commerce and Industry have urged the governments of the six states to adopt a more comprehensive aid package aiming to stimulate growth and reduce the effects of the global financial crisis on businesses in the Gulf region.

The Emirates Business wrote on Monday that according to a study it had obtained, the Chambers expected the crisis to spread to other sectors in addition to oil, banks and construction.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama laid out a new effort Monday to help small businesses struck hard by a Wall Street crisis that has cut off their access to loans.

The administration's new plan is designed to jump-start lending by directly investing in frozen credit markets, boosting loan guarantees and forcing the 21 banks that have accepted emergency government funds to report monthly on their loans to US companies.

Kiev  - Manufacturing in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine is down by nearly a third over 2008 indicators, but recent data gives hope an economic turnaround is in sight, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said Monday.

"Practically in all sectors with the exception of energy we already are registering positive growth, and some industries are up as much as 20 per cent," she claimed, in comments reported by Interfax.

Reykjavik  - Iceland's battered economy is showing some signs of improvement with inflation appearing to have peaked, the head of a delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Friday.

"The crisis has led to a sharp drop in economic activity, but a late-year turnaround remains within reach," delegation head Mark Flanagan said, adding that "the krona has stabilized and inflation appears to have peaked."

Tokyo - Japan announced on Friday it was drafting a new 100-trillion-yen (1.03-trillion-dollar) economic stimulus package, news reports said.

Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said the details of the package would be made public by the beginning of April.

Prime Minister Taro Aso will present the plan at a meeting of G20 leaders in London on April 2, Yosano said.