VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Sunday his country's government will increase investment in Asian infrastructure at a meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), according to Kyodo News.

Billionaire investor Daniel Loeb said on Friday his hedge fund has taken a new position in Yum! Brands (YUM.N), sending the fast-food restaurant company's stock up nearly 7 percent.

China's factories stayed stuck in the slow lane in April while Japanese output went into reverse and South Korea suffered its worst export performance in two years, adding urgency to calls for more state stimulus in all three economies.

Beijing authorities have fined U.S.-based J.R. Simplot's China processing unit, which supplies frozen french fries to McDonald's Corp, 3.92 million yuan ($632,370) for water pollution, state media and Simplot said.

China's biggest lender by assets, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, said on Wednesday it had signed an infrastructure pact worth $2 billion with the oil-rich west African nation of Equatorial Guinea.

China overtook France last year as the world's second largest wine grower by area under cultivation as it continued to plant vast fields of mostly imported grape vines to meet growing demand.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Monday asked China to drop a ban on imports of U.S. poultry imposed because of an outbreak of bird flu in chickens and turkeys.

Apple Inc (AAPL.O) beat Wall Street's revenue and profit forecasts on Monday as it sold more iPhones in China than the United States for the first time, but the company gave no sales figures for its new Apple Watch.

One by one, Japan is turning off the lights at the giant oil-fired power plants that propelled it to the ranks of the world's top industrialized nations. With nuclear power in the doldrums after the Fukushima disaster, it's solar energy that is becoming the alternative.

China will likely cut the number of its central government-owned conglomerates to 40 through massive mergers, as Beijing pushes forward a sweeping plan to overhaul the country's underperforming state sector, state media reported on Monday.

Chinese e-commerce leader Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and state-owned China Telecom Corp Ltd have tied up to sell inexpensive smartphones aimed at boosting mobile commerce in smaller cities and rural areas.

Sweden's Volvo Cars will produce at its Belgian factory a small car based on a common platform and engine technology developed with Chinese parent Zhejiang Geely Holding Group [GEELY.UL], Volvo's chief said.

Venezuela, struggling to pay for essential items such as food and medicine amid strict foreign currency controls, may have failed to collect about a third of its potential oil revenue in 2014, a Reuters analysis suggests.

Emerging Asian central banks are expected to cut interest rates again in the coming months, but economists polled by Reuters are doubtful the moves will significantly boost growth or inflation.

China said on Friday that urban employment held up in the first quarter even as economic growth slowed to a 6-year low, but the labor ministry warned that authorities cannot be "blindly optimistic" as the pace of job creation is slowing.