Indian shares advanced Thursday on the first trading day of 2009, led by gains in Icici Bank after the lender cut its lending and deposit rates by at least half a percentage point, while resource stocks jumped after crude-oil prices surged overnight. The benchmark Sensitive Index, or Sensex, rose 224.43 points, or 2.3% to 9,871.74 in afternoon trading, after losing more than 52% in 2008 and in the wake of an overnight advance on Wall Street. Pakistan's KSE 100 Index fell 114.24 points to 5,761.10, taking losses into a 13th session since Dec. 15, as investors continued to dump shares after the country's markets regulator removed a floor under stock prices. Most other Asian markets, including those in Japan, Hong Kong, China, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand, were closed for New Year's Day. In Mumbai trading, shares of Icici Bank gained 3.5% after the private-sector lender cut its lending rates by a half-point, following similar rate reduction moves by its state-owned peers. The bank also cut interest rates on retail deposits by between 0.5 and 0.75 percentage point. Shares of Maruti Suzuki gained 4.8% on the rate cut as well as news that country's largest passenger-car maker sold 9% more vehicles in India in December than it did in the previous month. Sales declined from the year-ago month. Among resource shares, Oil & Natural Gas Corp. gained 2.8%, while aluminum producer Hindalco Industries rose 4.4% and non-ferrous-metals company Sterlite Industries jumped 5.5%. Shares of Jet Airways rose 3.5% after state-run oil companies cut prices of aviation turbine fuel by 7%. In Karachi, shares of market heavyweights Oil & Gas Development and MCB Bank both tumbled 5%. Overnight on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 108 points to end the final trading session of 2008 at 8,776. The S&P 500 Index rose 12 points to 903 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 26 points to 1,577.

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