ELECTRONICS giant Panasonic Semiconductor Asia has started retrenching production workers, with some reports saying that as many as 200 people could be axed.

The layoffs - which could affect 10 per cent of the firm's workforce here - began yesterday with 90 people being retrenched with more to get their pink slips on Wednesday.

KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIA'S incoming prime minister Najib Razak needs to take swift action to reverse declining support for the government that has ruled for 51 years, influential ex-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad told Reuters.

Mr Najib will take power at the end of March and will have to deal with the worst economic downturn since the Asian financial crisis of 1998 as well as rebuilding a party tainted with corruption and still bruised by last year's big election losses.

TOKYO - JAPAN'S central bank said on Tuesday that it would lend up to US$10 billion (S$15.3 billion) to commercial banks in the latest effort to tackle a deepening recession in Asia's biggest economy.

The Bank of Japan said it would supply funds of up to one trillion yen to encourage the banks to keep lending during the credit crunch.

PUTRAJAYA (Malaysia) - MALAYSIA has shed 26,000 jobs since the global financial crisis blew up in September and nearly twice as many workers could lose their jobs this year as struggling manufacturers cut output, a senior government official said.

'It (unemployment) is going to be quite long and badly affected,' Sheikh Yahya Sheikh Mohamed, deputy director of labour in Malaysia's Human Resources Ministry, told Reuters in an interview.