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SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia's competition watchdog said it will not oppose an 8.3 billion US dollar merger between the Australian and Singapore stock exchanges to create the world's fifth biggest bourse.

In a move which brings the deal one step closer, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said a Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX) and Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) merger would not substantially lessen competition.

"In Australia, SGX does not compete with ASX for trading, clearing or settlement services," it said in a statement on Wednesday.

"ASX and SGX do compete for listing services, but only to a limited extent."

The deal, which is intended to create a regional trading hub to rival Hong Kong, is also being reviewed by Australia's securities and foreign investment watchdogs, as well as the central bank, and must be approved by the Treasurer.

Australia's parliament, where the centre-left government of Prime Minister Julia Gillard holds just a one-vote majority in the lower house -- will then have to pass a bill allowing the deal to go ahead.

The ASX and its Singapore counterpart welcomed the decision.

"Our focus continues to be on satisfying the regulatory process that is well under way," an ASX spokesman told Dow Jones Newswires.

"We are pleased with the decision by ACCC," a spokeswoman with SGX said.

The Singapore bid has sparked a strong political backlash in Canberra, where key independent lawmakers have questioned Singapore's human rights and democracy record and argued that the deal would disadvantage Australia.

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said his party, part of the government's fragile coalition, would vote against the deal in parliament unless the benefits of a foreign takeover of the Australian Stock Exchange were proven.

"The ACCC's narrow mandate is no substitute for a responsible government decision," Senator Brown said in a statement.

But Australia's stock exchange chief has lauded the proposal, saying the nation would benefit from a stock exchange with a heftier market capitalisation of 12.3 billion US dollars.

The deal would increase the size and diversity of options for investors and reduce costs for listed companies -- "an outcome unequivocally in the national interest", ASX chief executive Robert Elstone said earlier this month.

"The need for additional scale and regional relevance makes ASX's participation in exchange consolidation a mandatory, not an elective, matter for all of its stakeholders, and not just its shareholders," he said.

Elstone said the merger was the "natural competitive and regulatory evolution of Australia's capital markets" given the rise of Asia.

The competition watchdog had been expected to approve the deal, which is scheduled for completion in mid-2011, but one analyst at Wilson HTM Securities, Andrew Hills, said the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) and the government would prove greater obstacles.

"The big hurdle is FIRB and passing both houses of parliament," Hills told Dow Jones Newswires.

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Australian Group said Wednesday morning in Sydney that it create confidence and raise a. equity-new 3 $ 5bn. Trade in the shares of the company was interrupted Tuesday in anticipation of the announcement of the transaction.

Westfield Trust retail will be a joint venture in 54 of malls and Australia New Zealand business partner.

Westfield, whose assets deserve to be more A$ 61bn, owns the Westfield London shopping centre in the woods of the Shepherd, but sites of Derby, Nottingham and Guildford.

It is also developing a new center of. 45bn ￡ 1 in Stratford, London is next to the site for the Olympic Games of 2012 and intends to launch a fresh product development market.

It is heard that restructuring, which places the UK assets alongside 55 company US shopping centres, allow the Westfield more space to advance its UK, including Bradford city centre regeneration, development plans to provide with the power of fire to pursue acquisitions of companies.

Citigroup, Credit Switzerland and Morgan Stanley are advise Westfield, which also appears to be in talks with Henderson Global Investors a 50pc stake in his Stratford diet for a new Fund sales.

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'Aussie' capture rising economic displacement centre world of gravity toward the Pacific region. It was worth half a dollar nine years ago. Photo: AFP

When long-awaited "triple equity" seems Swiss franc imminent.Le is already worth more than a ticket and Canadian dollar apparently poised to penetrate as well.

Rising "Aussie" - widely considered to be a play on the growth of China's history and used by merchants as a proxy for the Chinese yuan - capture the economic mobility centre world of gravity toward the Pacific region.The money was worth half a dollar, just nine years ago.

"Australia says Reserve Bank the economy is now subject to great expansionary terms of trade shock and was relatively modest amounts of capacity réserve.Le risk of inflation increased again in the medium term remains".

Taken by surprise move markets.Credit growth has been cool these past few weeks and inflation is always just the 8pc 2 - to 3 1pc United Kingdom- but the Bank is concerned about the risk of a wage spiral.

HSBC said exporters of commodities and emerging markets such as the Australia opt "of quantitative restrictions" to compensate for the effects of quantitative liquidity facilitate in the United States, thereby causing an influx of money in economies growing rapide.Plusieurs States are playing with capital controls.

Central Bank of the India has also strengthened, raise the rate by a quarter point to 6 25pc.It has imposed draconian housing borders to reduce the "excessive leverage" and prick the bubble, limiting mortgages 80pc of property values.

It reacted with too little too late.

"Interest rates have been negative in real terms of 26 months and strongly negative for several months," said Bhandari Maya of Lombard Street Research.

"Inflation is 9 8pc and will get worse as QE2 fed pushes food prices, a quarter point rate rise will not make a big difference."They are based on administrative measures ' instead of doing what they should do," she says.

Ms. Bhandari said that the authorities had let rip with a "huge monetary and fiscal boost" before the elections in May 2009, leaving a legacy of returning now to hanter.Le deficit of the central budget and combined state - including subsidies on fuel - overheating is almost 11pc GDP.

Team of money-HSBC said that the Australian dollar can be nearly at its peak. "A concern relates to the view of deflation of Chine.Cela property bubble may happen slowly, but if not, the Australian did not avoid the retombées.Une sharp drop in Chinese property prices could very well make a deep review of bubble property the Australia and Australia banks, "they wrote in a client note."

Report says lenders the Australia depend on funding from abroad to support internal explosion in the country, creating a risky incompatibility liabilities. "Rational or irrational, it could turn very sour .the ' appearance of party defined Aussie soon coming to an end, "he said."

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