International Business

China Calls for Foreign Investment in Grain: Agriculture Minister Liu Jiang said foreign investment must be channeled into grain production after a fall in output last year led to a surge in prices, the official China Daily reported. Liu told a national agricultural conference that China’s grain output fell 2.6% last year to 444.6 million metric tons under pressure from rapid population growth, encroachment of industrial projects on farmland, floods and droughts, the paper said. Increases in the cost of grain and food were a key element in a 24.2% rise in consumer prices in China last year, the nation’s highest inflation rate since 1949. Grain prices were up 61.9% in November from a year earlier.