By Andreas Moeser and Langi Chiang
BERLIN/BEIJING (Reuters) - Germany detailed its second stimulus package in as many months on Tuesday as grim data from China and Japan underscored the scale of the global financial crisis.
Germany's 50 billion euro (45.8 billion pound) plan comes as President-elect Barack Obama seeks approval to unlock the second half of a $700 billion U.S. package approved in October.
"This is the biggest package the Federal Republic of Germany has ever seen," Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck told German broadcaster WDR. The country's second aid plan was agreed late on Monday.
France may pump in more aid on top of what it says is a 26 billion euro plan while Britain, which unveiled a 20 billion pound package in November, faced a trio of surveys on Tuesday suggesting its economy had entered its deepest recession since at least the 1980s.
Governments are being forced to take action to try to support companies which are increasingly shedding operations and jobs due to falling earnings.
On Monday, the OECD warned of "deep slowdowns in the major seven economies and in major non-OECD member economies, particularly China, India and Russia" after a fall in its leading indicator for the Group of Seven big industrial nations.
A record rise in Japanese bank lending in December reported on Tuesday showed companies, struggling to raise cash via commercial paper or bonds, had been forced to borrow more from banks.
"Corporate executives are very worried because their cashflow is clearly dwindling," said Hideo Kumano, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute.
Sony Corp is expected to post its first operating loss in 14 years this business year, a source said, and there was gloom on Wall Street as aluminium producer Alcoa Inc. kicked off the earnings season with a wider-than-expected quarterly loss.
Obama said he had asked President George W. Bush to formally request the bailout funds so they could be ready when he takes office on January 20.
"I felt that it would be irresponsible for me, with the first $350 billion (239 billion pounds) already spent, to enter into the administration without any potential ammunition should there be some sort of emergency or a weakening of the financial system," Obama said.
Germany's Steinbrueck said the country's aid package involved a mixture of investment spending and tax cuts including incentives for new car purchases.
A fall in Chinese December exports and imports on Tuesday underscored the global slowdown which government aid packages are designed to tackle.
China's imports fell 21.3 percent while exports fell 2.8 percent from year-earlier levels -- a small fall compared with declines of 42 percent and 17.4 percent reported by neighbours Taiwan and South Korea.
Ma Xiaoping, an economist with HSBC in Beijing, said she expected China's exports to fall at an annual rate of about 20 percent in coming months -- in contrast to the 17.2 percent increase in 2008.
Slowing economies are also expected to spur the European Central Bank to cuts interest rates again on Thursday, economists polled by Reuters said.
WEAK RESULTS
Fears of steep losses at U.S. banking giant Citigroup and Asian industry giants such as Sony pummelled shares and bolstered government debt.
European shares were lower, with the FTSEurofirst 300 index down 2.7 percent as of 11:17 a.m. British time.
The biggest retailer, Tesco, reported its smallest rise in Christmas sales since the early 1990s.
Asian indexes followed U.S. stocks lower, with Tokyo's Nikkei falling more than 4 percent.
Sony shares fell more than 8 percent on reports of an expected loss. A source close to the matter told Reuters the maker of Bravia flat TVs and Playstation 3 video game consoles may post an operating loss of about $1.1 billion for the year to end-March.
In the United States, Citigroup shares fell 17 percent after a Wall Street Journal report the bank might post a quarterly operating loss of at least $10 billion.
(Additional reporting by Mark Potter in London; Kerstin . Gehmlich in Berlin; Kentaro Hamada, Sachi Izumi, Tetsushi Kajimoto and Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo; Jeff Mason in Washington and Steve James in New York; Writing by Alex Richardson and Jason Neely; Editing by Elizabeth Piper)
