VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in China grew at its strongest pace in nearly four years in January, surging 29.4 percent from a year earlier to $13.9 billion as investors largely shunned the troubled manufacturing sector and focused on the more resilient services industry.

Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged on Thursday $250 billion in investment in Latin America over the next 10 years as part of a drive to boost resource-hungry China's influence in a region long dominated by the United States.

When Xi Jinping wanted to deliver a political message to Hong Kong as protesters demanding free elections were threatening to take to the streets, he summoned the tycoons who dominate the city’s economy.

Uber Technologies Inc is under fire in Taiwan and the Chinese mainland mega city Chongqing over concerns that it and its drivers are not appropriately licensed, adding to a string of official complaints aimed at the fast-growing U.S. start-up.

The United States on Tuesday confirmed steep import duties on solar products from China and Taiwan, in a decision that could inflame trade tensions between the two countries.

The Philippines aims to buy two frigates, two helicopters and three gunboats for deployment in the South China Sea where a territorial dispute with China has lent urgency to the need to bolster forces, a Philippine navy officer said on Wednesday.

Taiwan has identified 12 smartphone brands that do not conform with privacy standards, and the handset makers could face fines or a ban unless they address the breaches, an official at the telecoms regulator said on Friday.

Ever since a civil war split the two sides more than 60 years ago, China has viewed Taiwan as a renegade province that needs to be absorbed into the mainland. To that end, the legion of Taiwanese businessmen working in China is a beachhead.

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (2317.TW), the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer, will partner with flat-panel maker Innolux Corp (3481.TW) in investing T$86.8 billion ($2.8 billion) in a panel-producing plant in Taiwan, the firms said.

Many of the television shows, movies and publications produced in China each year are rubbish, and the solution is to banish decadent themes and concentrate on uplifting social values instead, a senior government minister has said.

A consortium of Taiwan's largest private shipbuilder Ching Fu Shipbuilding Co Ltd, U.S. defense firm Lockheed Martin Corp and Italian firm Intermarine SpA have won a contract to supply six mine countermeasure vessels for Taiwan's navy for an undisclosed amount.

Taiwan's Wei family has agreed to buy China Network Systems (CNS), the nation's biggest cable TV operator, for about $2.4 billion including debt from private equity firm MBK Partners, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Sunday.

Mining tycoon Andrew Forrest acquired Perth, Western Australia-based beef processor and exporter Harvey Beef for an undisclosed amount through his company Minderoo, and announced expansion plans for the newly-acquired firm.

FIH, a handset manufacturing service provider of Foxconn, poured $2.2 million into Singaporean social media site mig33 to help the latter preload its apps into tens of millions of mobile phones every month.

Kaohsiung, Taiwan-based business conglomerate Formosa Plastics Group agreed to acquire a 95% stake in Taiwanese cable network Gala Television Corp (Gala TV) from Swedish private equity firm EQT Partners for an undisclosed amount.