CHINA

State Enterprises Closed: More than 2,000 state enterprises have been closed down in China in recent weeks, according to analysts cited last week by the English-language China Daily. Numerous other nonprofitable enterprises have been forced to merge with better performers in the hope of improving their results, and production of some poor-quality products has been suspended, the newspaper said. Mass closures of companies are new to China, where many state-owned enterprises, including many of its heavy industrial mammoths, have survived for years thanks only to massive government subsidies. Up to now, the fear of the social consequences of mass redundancies has prevented China’s authorities from taking this bull by the horns, analysts said.