CHINA

Government Unveils Economic Database: In an effort to make the nation’s economy less baffling to the West, China has logged financial profiles on about 300,000 companies, and the data is now available to investors, officials said. China hopes the data, collected over the past two years by 4 million census workers, will provide a clearer picture of the country’s burgeoning service sector. Wall Street analysts are skeptical about the project, questioning how useful it might be. They said the main problem with the database is the Chinese accounting system, which is being overhauled but still does not conform to Western standards.