Manila - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Thursday it was providing a 700-million-dollar multi-tranche financing facility to Kazakhstan to help create a "new Silk Road" that would boost its economy and link Europe and Asia.

The Manila-based bank said the Central Asian Regional Economic Cooperation Transport Corridor I project will run 2,715 kilometres from the city of Khorgos on Kazakhstan's border with China, through Almaty and Shymkent, to the country's western border with the Russian Federation.

Riga - State bail-outs of financial institutions have become almost commonplace in recent months, but still cause a mixture of surprise, fear and sometimes even panic when they are suddenly revealed.

In a bid to ease the liquidity pressure in the monetary system, the union government has directed public sector enterprises to keep their surplus funds with public sector banks (PSBs) without any competitive bid. Total surplus funds amounts to about 1,00,000 cror. This amount would meet fund requirement of the banks, as they have already used funds to cover government sponsored farm loan waiver and other debts.

Amsterdam - Dutch bank and insurance giant ING Group suffered a loss of 478 million euros (609.93 million dollars) in the third quarter of 2008, the firm's first-ever quarterly loss, ING reported on Wednesday.

The quarterly report said the loss was partly the result of write-downs of more than 1.5 billion euros on ING's various assets, including those related to the US real-estate market.

In the third quarter of 2007, ING posted a net profit of 2.3 billion euros.

Wednesday's quarterly report did not come as a surprise.

Paris - French investment bank Natixis lost 975 million euros (1.23 billion dollars) in trading last month and is to issue a fourth-quarter profits warning, the business daily La Tribune reported on Wednesday.

According to the report, the losses were registered in trading with shares as well as currencies and interest rates.

It remained unclear if the loss was due to unauthorized deals carried out by a small group of traders, as was reportedly the case with Natixis's parent company Caisse d'Epargne, which lost 751 million euros in early October.