appliance giant Haier's profit up 20.6%

The achievement came from effective control of inventory levels as well as trade and bill receivables, said its CEO Zhang Ruimin.
The Qingdao-based Haier has taken lessons from the 1997 Asian financial crisis and is preparing to respond to crisis every day, Zhang said.
Sales in overseas markets rose 9.8 percent year on year.
Zhang said the key to the growth in China was the fast-growing rural market.
Haier is benefiting from the central government's subsidy scheme to spur domestic consumption that began its trial run in December 2007. The second round of the scheme began on Dec. 1 last year.

Olympics budget

Cobb said the revised budget includes a larger contingency fund to cover funding shortages and to protect organizers in an increasingly uncertain market.
Money for the fund up will come from a variety of sources, including 100 fewer new hires in the coming year and cutbacks to administrative costs, Cobb said.
The current operational budget for the 2010 Winter Olympics is 1.62 billion Canadian dollars (1.29 billion U.S. dollars), which does not include 580 million Canadian dollars for venues. Those costs are to be funded in part by ticket sales and sponsorship agreements.
Organizers still need to recruit three or four new major sponsors to raise roughly 10 million Canadian dollars to meet financial goals, and during the last six months, it turned out to be very hard to raise revenue, Cobb said.