China's outbound investment tops 8.5 billion USD in first quarter

20 Apr, 2011
Source: Xinhua

China's domestic investors from non-financial sectors made direct investments totaling 8.5 billion U.S. dollars in 974 overseas enterprises in 98 countries and regions around the world in the first quarter, said Yao Jian, spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce, on April 19.

Yao said that the cumulative outbound direct investments from China's non-financial sectors reached 267 billion U.S. dollars at the end of March 2011. In the first quarter, China's outbound direct investments mainly flew into Hong Kong, Australia, the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, Iran, the United States, Singapore, Burma, Brazil, Cambodia and Laos. Direct investments in Australia and the European Union were up by about 150 percent.

In the first quarter, 1.2 billion U.S. dollars of outbound direct investments were from mergers and acquisitions, accounting for 14 percent of the total. The merger and acquisition deals were primarily in the manufacturing sector.

China posted 17 billion U.S. dollars in turnover of international engineering contracting projects for the first quarter, up 3 percent compared with the same period last year. The value of newly-signed contracts stood at 31 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 17 percent from a year earlier. The turnover of engineering contracting projects in Africa dropped drastically because of the political unrest in some North African and Middle East countries.

In the first quarter, China sent a total of 93,000 workers to foreign countries, an increase of 10,000 from a year earlier. Of them, 57,000 are engaged in engineering contracting projects, and 36,000 are engaged in labor service cooperation projects. A total of 769,000 Chinese workers were working in foreign countries and regions at the end of March, which is a decrease of about 9,000 from a year before. Of them, 173,000 work in Africa, a decrease of 24,000 from a year earlier.

By People's Daily Online