China, Venezuela offer better economic model

China and Venezuela's economies, dominated by major state owned companies, offer the world a healthy model for growth as the global financial system crumbles, leftist Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez said on Wednesday. "Look at the crisis that we have in the world, and yet I am not worried for Venezuela," the fiery critic of Washington said, after signing a string of deals in Beijing. "China has no more worries than us. It may affect us (both), without doubt, but it will not throw us to the ground," he added. Allies in South America and the rest of the world are creating a new system to replace the defunct U.S. model that put market forces ahead of governments, institutions and ordinary people when setting policy, Chavez said. "Now we have to do it with more urgency and speed, because of the collapse of capitalism, of the Western financial system," he added, but the self-proclaimed Maoist appeared relaxed. "We still have time to save the world," he added. China's leaders, who have retreated from the central planning of the early communist era but still control prices for energy and keep a firm grip on strategic sectors of the economy, struck a more cautious note about the crisis. "China will enact economic control measures in accordance with the circumstances so as to maintain stable economic growth," Vice-Premier Li Keqiang told a high-level bilateral forum. "We will make efforts to increase the dynamism and power of the economy by fully leveraging our huge growth potential to sustain stable, rapid growth in the long run," he added.