The world demand for natural gas would increase in the coming decades and exceed the demand for oil by 4.4 percent yearly until 2020, a report issued by Kuwait- based Global Investment House said on Saturday.

Alstom, a world leader in transport and energy infrastructure, has signed major agreements with China on rail transport and power generation, the company said in Beijing Saturday.

A Number of world leaders will be arriving in Islamabad, capital of Pakistan, to participate in the World Islamic Economic Forum scheduled on November 5-7, according to local newspaper The Nation Saturday.

China's market watchdog has planned to tighten control of the cotton market to crack down illegal cotton dealers.

Mexican cement giant Cemex on Friday offered 12.8 billion U.S. dollars to acquire the Australian cement firm Rinker Group, a deal that could move Cemex from the world's third-largest cement maker to the world's biggest.

The economically booming Jiangsu Province in east China is expected to realize two trillion yuan (253 billion U.S. dollars) in its GDP for the whole of this year, including one trillion yuan (127 billion U.S. dollars) in value-added industrial output.

China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) Ltd. has announced hat its new oil fields started production in Bohai Bay.

The China National BlueStar (Group) Corporation became the largest Chinese investor in Europe after an acquisition deal announced Friday with the France-based specialty chemicals producer Rhodia Group.

Arrivals of oil products at Shenzhen, a special economic zone and a major oil import port in south China's Guangdong Province, reversed the downward trend in the first half of the year and increased rapidly in the August-September period.

China has announced the minimum hourly-wage standard in its 29 provinces and autonomous regions excluding Guangdong and Xinjiang, according to sources with the Ministry of Labor and Social Security(MLSS).