Business news for Mon, 24 Dec 2007 & with words economy+house. 3 news.

JAPAN'S Cabinet approved a budget that includes increased spending on rural areas and social welfare, making it harder for Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to balance the books by 2011. Japan's deficit is set to widen for the first time in five years and spending will rise 0.2 percent to 83.1 trillion yen (US$732 billion) in the year starting on April 1, according to a budget proposal released in Tokyo, Bloomberg News reported. Fukuda may struggle to meet his deadline as cooling global growth dims the outlook for Japan's export-dependent economy. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party is under pressure to assist ailing regions and elderly voters after it lost control of the upper house in July, making it difficult for it to cut debt. "The current political situation is forcing Fukuda to spend more," said Hidenori Suezawa, chief strategist at Daiwa Securities SMBC Co in Tokyo. "Given that the nation's public debt is rising, the government needs to make drastic reforms in

This is the China century," says Jim Rogers, standing amid moving boxes in his opulent Manhattan townhouse. "It's time for them to rule the roost." In fact, the 65-year-old former investment partner of George Soros and globe-circling author of Investment Biker is such a believer in the capitalist momentum of the People's Republic that he recently agreed to sell his beloved home and relocate full-time to Singapore - not quite Shanghai, but close enough to the action. It's something he's been considering at least since 2004, when Fortune last wrote about his remarkable prescience in championing a China-driven, worldwide commodities boom. His new book, A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World's Greatest Market (Random House, $26.95), is a how-to guide for investors interested in following him to the Far East. Fortune interrupted his packing for a chat about China, commodities, and the teetering U.S. economy.

Fresh signs of a slowdown in Britain's economy emerged this weekend, as new data revealed that house prices fell for the third consecutive month in December, while the British Retail Consortium warned that heavy discounting on the high street may have made for a much less merry Christmas than retailers had been hoping for.