China,Russia reach gas pipeline price deal

CNPC and Gazprom have agreed a gas pricing deal that should unlock a major pipeline plan, but it may come at a higher cost than the Chinese Government wanted, the Xinhua agency cited a Russian executive saying Saturday.

Alexander Medvedev, Gazprom's deputy chairman, said the two sides had reached consensus on the pricing mechanism for fuel pipe from Russia to China after months of wrangling that had held up the start of work. However he added that negotiations "would not be influenced by China's low natural gas import prices," Xinhua said.

China needs extra million km of roads

THE country needs to build 1 million kilometers of new roads by 2020, when highway use will have more than doubled, the Xinhua news agency said Friday, even though the government is concerned about energy security and rising pollution.

Vice Minister of Communications Feng Zhenglin said the country needed to upgrade its network to prepare for the estimated 36.5 billion passenger trips that will be made on its roads by the end of next decade, Xinhua reported. China currently has 3.5 million kilometers of road, but more than half of that is low grade and it has only 53,000 kilometers of expressways, Feng told a summit on highway construction.

Venture capital investment surges 87%

VENTURE capital investment in China urged 87.4 percent to US$677 million in the third quarter, an industry report said.

Service-oriented sectors were the most appealing as they attracted a record US$432 million and accounted for nearly half of the 59 deals, a report by Ernst and Young and Dow Jones Venture One, a financial information provider, said. By comparison, the sectors received investment worth US$242 million in the same period last year.