US private equity giant Carlyle Group will redouble its efforts in China by building up its team there, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

Global investors, from private-equity funds to investment banks, are eager to pour money into China to capitalize on its strong economic growth and to bet on companies that they hope to transform into industry leaders, according to the report.

And Carlyle's aggressive efforts marked its confidence in the promising but still bumpy market for private-equity deals, said the report.

"In the China market, the greatest challenge right now is the enormous amount of competition" for talent, David Rubenstein, a Carlyle co-founder, said at a conference on China's financial markets on Tuesday, presented by The Wall Street Journal and law firm O'Melveny & Myers LLP.

He predicted that as the industry evolves, "you'll see our biggest competition will not be from one another, but will be from the indigenous Chinese private-equity firms that have many strengths that we just can't possibly have."

Carlyle has made a number of smaller investments with private firms and led a consortium that took a nearly 20 percent stake in the country's third-biggest insurer by premiums, China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co.

But completing deals and navigating China's regulatory process remain demanding tasks.