Business news for Mon, 24 Dec 2007 & with words development+government. 4 news.

THE China Development Bank and the Tianjin Binhai New Area signed an agreement to set up a venture capital fund to boost high-technology start-ups in the fastest-growing economic zone in north China. The Ministry of Science and Technology Website released yesterday the joint efforts to kick off the first government-backed venture capital worth two billion yuan (US$270 million) with equal contributions from the CDB and the TBNA. Pi Qiansheng, a vice-ministerial official who heads the TBNA administration, said the government funded and operated venture capital would primarily perform as a fund of funds, an investment fund that has a strategy of holding a portfolio of other investment funds rather than investing in tangible projects. Pi said that the fund of funds will choose outstanding domestic and overseas venture capital funds, including private equity funds, to invest. The selected venture capital funds will be asked to prioritize their investment portfolio in high-technology

CHINA Unicom Ltd, the smaller of the nation's two mobile-phone operators, rose to the highest in Hong Kong trading in almost a month after a report said the country's top economic planning agency supported a breakup of Unicom. The shares gained 3.6 percent to HK$17.36, their best performance since November 30, at the end of trading yesterday. The National Development and Reform Commission said allowing China's fixed-line carriers to acquire Unicom's mobile networks is the most efficient plan for the industry, the Shanghai Securities News said yesterday, citing a research report by the country's top planning body. China, the world's largest mobile-phone market by users, is expected to reorganize the industry by breaking up Unicom into two operators to be run by the fixed-line companies. China Mobile Ltd controls two-thirds of the nation's wireless subscribers and is adding customers at four times the pace of Unicom. "The government is concerned China Mobile is much too

GOVERNMENT subsidy support for meat production will be stable even when pork prices fluctuate, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Speaking at an online press conference, Zeng Xiao'an, deputy director of the MOF's Department of Economic Development, said the government would take subsidies for piglet keepers into a long-term mechanism framework. "It does not matter whether pork prices are rising or falling, the supportive policies will be successive," said Zeng. "We will only adjust the strength of the policies based on real conditions," Zeng said when asked about the policies' time limit. To combat escalating inflation, China pledged to draw up a series of measures, including more subsidies for farmers. From July next year to the end of June in 2009, subsidies for each reproductive female piglet will be raised from 50 yuan (US$6.75) to 100 yuan, said Zeng. Also, the central government will allocate 2.5 billion yuan next year to support the

THE Shanghai housing authority yesterday put forward nine residential plots of about 810,000 square meters for bidding and another 12 plots partly for residential development, Oriental Morning Post reported today. A total of 4.5 million square meters for residential development has been provided within this year, pushing the year-round total to the highest in recent years. The city has drastically boosted the number of plots for housing projects in the past two months since the government began to hand out land for housing in September, said the report. The plots are in seven districts, including Hongkou, Yangpu, Baoshan and Fengxian, as well as in Chongming County. Nearly 50,000 housing units smaller than 90 square meters will be built in the next two years, accounting for 70 percent of the total residential properties, the report said. The authorities cleared a batch of undeveloped buildings in July and increased a 27 million-square-meter area for constructing small