As well as injecting capital, the kingdom could also offer cheap fertiliser, which it can produce by using subsidised gas.

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Also hoping to lure foreign cash was Azman's colleague at AMC's sister entity Danamodal, which is tasked with injecting capital into Malaysian banks and pressing for efficiency-enhancing link-ups.

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Injecting capital is politically difficult.

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It helped stem the crisis by injecting public capital into the biggest US banks and restoring confidence in the banking system.

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But the American authorities in particular managed to draw a line under their financial crisis by injecting new capital into the (sometimes unwilling) banks and by showing that those banks could pass fairly rigorous stress tests in May 2009.

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Simply injecting them with capital, as it has so far done, rewards the worst-run and does nothing to reduce bad loans.

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