Outward Investment and Economic Cooperation in January 2017

In January 2017, Chinese domestic investors conducted non-financial direct investment in 983 overseas enterprises of 108 countries and regions with an accumulative investment amount of RMB53.27 billion (equaling US$7.73 billion), down 35.7% year on year and slightly down 4.6% month on month compared with that of in December 2016. The completed turnover of foreign contractual projects was RMB56.44 billion (equaling US$8.19 billion), with an increase of 3.4%. And the newly signed contract value was RMB82.49 billion (equaling US$11.97 billion). There had been 924,000 laborers overseas by the end of January.

In January, China’s foreign investment and cooperation mainly showed the following features:

Firstly, the investment of entity economy and emerging industry attracted attention. In January, the outward investment mainly flew to manufacturing industry and information transmission, software and information technology service industry, with an increase of 79.4% and 33.1% respectively year on year. The proportion that they took up in the total outward investment went up to 37.5% and 11.5% from 13.4% and 5.6% in the same period of 2016. The outward investment flew US$2.29 billion to the equipment manufacturing industry, 2.7 times over the same period last year. The investment flowing to real estate industry and culture and sports and entertainment industry decreased 84.3% and 93.3% respectively year on year.

Second, the investment in the countries along the line of the “Belt and Road” was active. The non-financial direct investment in the countries along the line of the “Belt and Road” accounted for 10.6% of the total outward investment, 2.1 percentage points higher than the proportion in 2016.

Thirdly, the outward investment and financing channel of enterprises tended to be more diversified. In January, the two largest outward investment and merger and acquisition projects had been completed by overseas financing, with a total value of US$8.38 billion.

Fourthly, the big contract foreign projects till remained at high level with favorable development momentum. In January, there were 50 projects with a newly-signed contract value of more than US$50 million, with a total value of US$9.46 billion, accounting for 79% of the total value of newly-signed contract value.