Chinese Enterprises Accelerate Global Expansion Amid Vibrant BRI Cooperation

At a press conference on September 20, Shen Danyang, spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce, stated that from January to August, domestic Chinese investors made non-financial direct investments in nearly 6,000 overseas enterprises across around 160 countries and regions. Contracted engineering projects involving Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) partners registered robust growth.


Over the eight-month period, Chinese firms signed roughly 4,000 new overseas engineering contracts in 61 BRI-related countries, with a total contractual value of 69.82 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 28.3%, accounting for 52.6% of China’s total newly-signed overseas engineering contracts.


Official data shows China’s non-financial outbound direct investment reached 775.12 billion yuan (118.06 billion US dollars) in the first eight months, rising 53.3% year on year. The figure stood at 100.52 billion yuan (15.31 billion US dollars) in August alone, up 13.4% year on year.


China’s completed turnover of overseas engineering projects hit 590.9 billion yuan (90 billion US dollars), a mild year-on-year growth of 1.5%. Newly-signed contracts totaled 871.7 billion yuan (132.77 billion US dollars), growing 6.2% year on year. In August, the monthly completed turnover jumped 32.9% to 12.92 billion US dollars, and new contract value climbed 25.3% to 18.79 billion US dollars.


A total of 306,000 workers were dispatched for overseas labor cooperation in the January-August period, including 35,000 personnel in August. By the end of August, 979,000 Chinese workers were stationed overseas.


China’s outbound investment and economic cooperation presented five prominent features:


First, steady growth momentum maintained. Non-financial outbound direct investment surged 53.3% year on year to 118.06 billion US dollars, with August investment growing 13.4% year on year.


Second, investment remained regionally concentrated with rapid growth in developed economies. Investments into seven major economies including Hong Kong, ASEAN, EU, Australia, the United States, Russia and Japan amounted to 87.66 billion US dollars, taking up 74.2% of the national total. Investment in the US skyrocketed by 193.2%. Qingdao Haier completed the acquisition of General Electric’s home appliance business at 5.58 billion US dollars, marking the largest outbound direct investment deal finalized in August.


Third, industrial investment structure kept optimizing, with manufacturing investment gaining sustained growth. Capital mainly flowed into business services, manufacturing, wholesale and retail, as well as information transmission, software and IT services, occupying 25.7%, 17.9%, 15.7% and 12% of total investment respectively. Investment in manufacturing stood at 21.11 billion US dollars, a year-on-year surge of 209.3%. Equipment manufacturing drew 14.08 billion US dollars, 4.7 times the figure of the same period last year, making up 66.7% of manufacturing outbound investment.


Fourth, engineering contracting business boomed in BRI participating nations. New contract value in related countries accounted for more than half of the national total. The New Administrative Capital construction project in Egypt undertaken by China State Construction Engineering Corporation, valued at 2.7 billion US dollars, became the largest single engineering contract secured by Chinese enterprises in BRI regions this year.


Fifth, provinces and cities along the Yangtze River Economic Belt saw vigorous outbound investment. Their investment volume reached 39.87 billion US dollars, 1.9 times that of the previous year and 33.9% of the national aggregate. Shanghai posted 17.62 billion US dollars with a 70.3% year-on-year increase. Zhejiang and Jiangsu recorded 7.69 billion and 7.05 billion US dollars, rising 218.1% and 130.3% respectively.