$2.4 Billion Investment Firm Launches in Guangdong

(Shenzhen) — China's largest private provincial-level investment firm started business on Friday with a war chest of 16 billion yuan ($2.4 billion) in Guangdong province, aiming to jump-start a faltering local economy known for its entrepreneurial spirit.

Guangdong, in the country's southeast, was the cradle of modern Chinese manufacturing in the early post-Reform era, drawing on a huge flood of investment and expertise that poured in from adjacent Hong Kong and Macau and nearby Taiwan. But lately the region's manufacturing machine has sputtered due to rising costs and slowing demand for exports that account for much of its business.