A money machine

CHINA wants to boost the return that it earns on its $1 trillion-plus stash of foreign-exchange reserves. The prime minister, Wen Jiabao, said on January 20th that the country would explore new ways of investing the money, which is held mostly in liquid American government securities. But his statement was vague. It could simply imply broadening the composition of assets held by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) to include higher yielding equities and commodities; or, more dramatically, part of the reserves could be transferred to a separate state investment agency which would maximise returns like a fund manager.