Singapore - Loan approvals nearly doubled in Singapore from December to January after the government implemented a series of stimulus measures in the past several months, a news report said Wednesday

Loans rose to 411 last month, and more than 265 million Singapore dollars (175.97 million US dollars) of loans have been given to almost 800 companies since the government-initiated schemes started in December, Channel News Asia said, citing the enterprise development agency SPRING Singapore.

Ninety-eight per cent of that amount was given to small and medium-sized enterprises, the government agency said.

Singapore - The Singapore Tourism Board on Wednesday announced a 90-million-Singapore-dollar (59.71-million-US-dollar) initiative to help the local tourism sector ride out the global economic downturn as the city-state was expecting a drop in tourism arrivals.

Singapore  - Singaporean police is investigating the case of 68-year old woman accused of poisoning her ailing husband with arsenic, the Straits Times reported Wednesday.

Doctors treating the husband in 2006 discovered that the 70-year-old had patchy skin on his arms, which was then diagnosed as an effect of arsenic poisoning.

Singapore - Singapore Airlines, one of the world's leading carriers, reported Tuesday a 43-per-cent slump in its third-quarter net profit because of weaker passenger and cargo business and losses in fuel hedging.

The net profit from October to December was 337 million Singapore dollars (225 million US dollars), down from 590 million Singapore dollars in the same period of 2007, the company said.

Singapore - Singapore container shipper and logistics group Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) posted a net loss of 149 million US dollars for the fourth quarter of 2008 due to a rapid drop in cargo volume following the global economic downturn, the company said on Tuesday.

In the same period from October to December 2007 NOL reached a net profit of 196 million US dollars.

"The severity of the collapse in global trade over recent months is without precedent. Since late September 2008, we have seen a consistent, week-by-week drop in shipment levels across nearly all trade routes," NOL Group President and Chief Executive Officer Ron Widdows said in a statement.

Singapore - Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), South-East Asia's leading communications group, posted a 16-per-cent drop in quarterly net profit on Tuesday, attributing the result mainly to the strength of the Singapore dollar against the major regional currencies of countries where it operates.

Net profit for the third quarter of the current fiscal year was 799 million Singapore dollars (532 million US dollars), compared to 952 million Singapore dollars for the same October-December period a year earlier, SingTel reported.