The announcement came days after Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak announced that one of the ratings giants was about to review its grade for Russia's credit.

Storchak never spelled out whether this review intended to raise or lower Russia's investment outlook.

But the markets are concerned that the revision will be made to the downside owing to rapidly slowing economic growth and inflation that has outpaced expectations.

Any downgrade would make Russian foreign borrowing more expensive and put a further strain on a budget that is expected to reach a deficit this year.

Russia today has similar investment-grade ratings with Standard and Poor's (BBB) as well as Moody's (Baa1 and Fitch (BBB).

But Moscow has set itself the goal of securing the highest ratings possible from the three agencies by 2016 at the latest.

Storchak told the RIA Novosti news agency that "we have agreed with J.P. Morgan for it to be our official partner in relations with the ratings agencies."

The minister provided no details of what the bank's work would entail and J.P. Morgan itself issued no immediate comment.

In January, the Russian authorities had already hired the US investment banking leader Goldman Sachs as its official adviser on its overall economic image.

Russia has been grappling for decades with official corruption and an ineffective legal system that has been spooking foreign investors and forcing the country's stocks to be sold at a discount.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin is set on making Moscow into a global financial centre that one day will link the Hong Kong markets with those in London and New York.

Lagarde was grilled for 12 hours on Thursday over her 2007 handling of a row that resulted in 400 million euros ($515 million) being paid to controversial business figure Bernard Tapie.

The central bank announced a two trillion yen ($19 billion) fund-supplying operation after the yield on the benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond hit 1.0 percent, its highest level in over a year.

The BoJ is active in supplying finance to banks and other potential buyers in the bond markets every day, but the scale of Thursday's operation was large by recent standards.

The bank's financial operations division said in a statement the operation to provide fixed-rate short-term loans to financial institutions was to respond to "the unreasonable increase in the volatility of long-term rates".

Yields on the benchmark 10-year government bond sank to a record low of 0.315 percent on April 5, a day after the BoJ introduced its current easing programme that includes bond purchases to enhance liquidity and beat deflation.

But confusion over the ultimate effects of the BoJ scooping up as much as 70 percent of newly issued bonds from the market quickly set the yields on an upward march.

Investors started selling due to uncertainty over how yields would move when the central bank's share was so high. Some also dumped bonds to raise funds to invest in a stock market that has shot up in recent months.

The price of bonds moves in the opposite direction from their yield. A larger supply of bonds pushes down the price and therefore increases the yield.

Yields on 10-year government bonds are benchmarks used to set the rates of mortgages and other long-term loans, so any rise hits repayments for homeowners and reduces their ability to spend on other consumer goods.

Japan desperately needs its consumers to buy more things if it is to overcome the years of deflation that have battered its stagnating economy.

Chief government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said the BoJ move was in line with expectations and was no cause for alarm.

"It is natural for us to see interest rates rise as share prices rise like this," he told reporters.

"The Bank of Japan is creating the place to exchange views so that moves in interest rates can be stabilised firmly. Therefore, we are confident that things will be handled appropriately."

Thursday's spike also came after Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke suggested the US central bank could scale back its aggressive stimulus programme soon, sparking bond selling there.

Fund managers and dealers said the market had sold off on disappointment that the central bank offered no solutions or firm statements on recent yield rises and market turbulence at the end of its two-day policy meeting Wednesday.

The bank has regularly soaked up liquidity since last year to support the shilling by making it slightly more expensive to fund long dollar positions.

Lloyds said it was confident in its capital position and re-affirmed previous targets for its core tier 1 ratio.

"Our strong capital position enables the group to actively support growth and lending in the UK economy as well as delivering sustainable results for our shareholders," said Lloyds Chief Executive Antonio Horta-Osorio.

The Bank of England said in March that Britain's banks must raise 25 billion pounds of extra capital by the end of the year to absorb any future losses on loans. It said at that time the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) would give banks specific guidance on their capital position by the end of May.

Lloyds said on Wednesday it had been informed of the outcome of the PRA's considerations and expected to meet additional capital requirements through its strongly capital generative core business and through the disposal of non-core assets.

Lloyds said it expected its core tier 1 ratio, taking into account new Basel III capital rules, to be above 9 percent by the end of 2013 and above 10 percent by the end of 2014.

Lagarde will appear before the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), which probes cases of ministerial misconduct, to explain her 2007 handling of a row that resulted in 400 million euros ($515m) being paid to Bernard Tapie.

Tapie is a former politician and controversial business figure who went to prison for match-fixing during his time as president of France's biggest football club, Olympique Marseille.

Prosecutors working for the CJR suspect he received favourable treatment in return for supporting Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 and 2012 presidential elections.

They have suggested Lagarde -- who at the time was finance minister -- was partly responsible for "numerous anomalies and irregularities" which could lead to charges for complicity in fraud and misappropriation of public funds.

The investigation centres on her 2007 decision to ask a panel of judges to arbitrate in a dispute between Tapie and Credit Lyonnais, the collapsed, partly state-owned bank, over his 1993 sale of sports group Adidas.

Tapie had accused Credit Lyonnais of defrauding him by consciously undervaluing Adidas at the time of the sale and argued that the state, as the former principal shareholder in the bank, should compensate him.

His arguments were upheld by the arbitration panel but critics claimed the state should not have taken the risk of being forced to pay compensation to a convicted criminal who, as he was bankrupt at the time, would not have been able to pursue the case through the courts.

The payment Tapie received enabled him to clear his huge debts and tax liabilities and, according to media reports, left him with 20-40 million euros which he has used to relaunch his business career.

"Lagarde will for the first time have the opportunity to provide (the CJR) with explanations and clarifications that exempt her from any criminal responsibility," Yves Repiquet, Lagarde's lawyer, said of the court appearance.

The IMF has stood by Lagarde, who replaced her compatriot Dominique Strauss-Kahn as head of the organisation in 2011 after he resigned over an alleged sexual assault on a New York hotel maid.

"There's nothing new under the sun," she said last month in Washington. "Ever since 2011 I had known very well that I will be heard by the investigative commission of the Cour de Justice."

She has said the arbitration was necessary to put an end to a long-winded and costly dispute, and has always denied having acted under direct orders from Sarkozy.

A charismatic populist, Tapie was a minister under Socialist president Francois Mitterrand but he backed right-winger Sarkozy in the 2007 and 2012 elections.

He recently purchased a newspaper group in the south of France and there has been speculation about him re-entering politics as a candidate for mayor of Marseille in 2014.

Lagarde, meanwhile, has had a glittering career in law and politics.

She is the first woman to head the IMF and was also France's first female finance minister from 2007 to 2011 after rising to the executive board of US legal giant Baker & McKenzie.

The medium-term facility will be used to refinance an existing $650 million loan and bolster Etisalat Nigeria's network, Etisalat said in a statement to the Abu Dhabi bourse.

Etisalat owns a 40 percent stake in its Nigeria affiliate, which is formally known as Emerging Markets Telecommunications Services Ltd (EMTS).

EMTS will acccount for 3.7 percent of Etisalat's revenue in 2013, HSBC forecasts in a research note.

CIMB has a string of banking assets in almost every country in southeast Asia, which is relying increasingly on robust domestic demand in the face of weakening exports and an uneven global economic recovery.

"We remain mindful of macroeconomic challenges ahead as regional policy makers respond to the slower external demand, domestic inflationary pressures and strong liquidity inflows," Chief Executive Nazir Razak said in a statement.

Nazir said proceeds from the sale of CIMB Aviva to Malaysian state investor Khazanah and Canada's Sun Life Financial had strengthened the lender's capital position.

Net profit for the three months ended on March 31 grew to 1.39 billion ringgit ($461.18 million) from 1.01 billion ringgit a year earlier.

Excluding the one-off gain of 515 million ringgit from selling CIMB Aviva, Malaysia's second largest bank recorded a net profit gain of 4.2 percent, with single-digit percentage growth in consumer and wholesale banking.

CIMB handles the bulk of Malaysia's share listings, which were ranked fifth globally by proceeds raised last year and fetched close to $12 billion. Deal flow slowed in 2013 due to uncertainty over a May 5 election that Nazir's older brother, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, won by a smaller majority.

Shares of CIMB are up about 11 percent this year, almost in line with bigger rival Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank).

Maybank is due to announce first-quarter results on May 23.

"When it comes to our view of the international economic situation (it) may last until 2015. The eurozone is struggling. It could be in the next decade before Europe is out of its difficulties," Oeystein Olsen told a parliamentary committee.

He added that as long as oil prices were as high as they were now, it was hard to be pessimistic about the Norwegian economy.

After taking up his post in 2007, Bheenick managed to ease rising inflationary pressures, introduced an independent monetary Policy Committee and helped develop an Islamic finance industry.

The governor said the decision to keep him showed the government was happy with his policies, but analysts said it did not change the worsening economic outlook given the nation's heavy reliance on the troubled euro zone for tourists and trade.

The island state is seeking to cut dependency on the euro zone, traditionally the mainstay for the Mauritius tourist industry and a major market for its textiles, sugar and services industry.

Mauritius cut its 2013 growth forecast in March to 3.5 percent from 3.7 percent previously, citing deeper contraction in the construction industry. The economy grew 3.3 percent in 2012.