China has announced the creation of a 200 billion yuan ($30bn) venture capital fund to invest in new and innovative technology. There's only one catch: it is, of course, run by the state.
The fund's creation was announced by the country's state assets regulator and the money comes from other state-run companies, including its postal savings bank, investment bank and construction bank.
Dozens of countries have tried – and largely failed – to recreate the extraordinary culture and innovation attitude of Silicon Valley. The post-mortems on most of those efforts have concluded that the over-involvement of government agencies and the existence of too many rules and regulations have been behind their lack of success.
China has decided to go the other direction. ®