China Pushes More Private Investment

SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) - China signaled on Wednesday it wanted to ramp up private investment in its energy sector, in line with recently unveiled government plans to fast-track infrastructure investment to help combat the nation's slowing economy. Beijing is drafting detailed guidelines to encourage private investment across industries, with special focus on the heavily state-controlled electricity, oil and natural gas sectors, according to an article by the official Xinhua news agency. ...

China says it may encourage private investment in state-controlled industries such as railways, oil and power generation in an effort to boost the efficiency of the world's third-largest economy.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's governme

Investors could be allowed to enter Chinese government-controlled sectors such as electricity, oil and natural gas.BEIJING — Faced with declining profits and a slowing economy, China said it was drafting plans to boost private investment for industries long dominated by the state.

CARACAS, Venezuela — First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities — toilet paper. Blaming political opponents for the shortfall, as it does for other shortages, the embattled socialist government says it will import 50 million rolls to boost supplies. That was little comfort to consumers struggling to find toilet paper on Wednesday.

Ethan Backus submits: Last night, I woke up screaming into the night. Ugh, another nightmare about the Chinese dumping their dollars. In recent months the amounts of foreign currency reserves held by the Central Bank of China has ballooned to $2.4 trillion, with well over a trillion being made up of greenbacks.

China said Friday it will provide subsidies and discount loans to encourage private investment, in the latest step by policymakers to shore up the slowing economy.Private investment accounts for more than 60 percent of China's total fixed-asset investment, the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planning agency, said in a statement.China's policy makers are stepping up efforts to boost the world's second-largest economy after growth fell to 8.1 percent in the first quarter of 2012 -- its slowest pace in nearly three years.