China’s Outbound Foreign Investment for January – April Rises 0.7% YoY to Approach $33 Billion

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China’s outbound foreign investment saw a slight uptick during the first four-months of 2020 as the country grappled with the COVID-19 outbreak.

Figure released by the Ministry of Commerce on 3 June indicate that during the period from January to April China’s domestic investors made non-financial direct investments of 235.08 billion yuan (approx. USD$32.97 billion), for a YoY rise of 0.7%.

These investments were directed to 3084 offshore enterprises situated in 155 different countries and regions.

This included $5.23 billion in investment in 53 Belt and Road countries, for a YoY rise of 13.4%, accounting for 15.6% of all investment during the period, and a rise of 2.3 percentage points compared to last year.

Non-financial direct investment in ASEAN totalled $3.94 billion, for YoY growth of 43.3%.

In terms of sector, foreign non-financial direct investment was mainly targeted at:

  • Leasing and commercial services (37.4% share of the total, following a YoY rise of 40.4%)
  • Wholesale and retail (17.4% of the total, following a YoY rise of 96.0%)
  • Manufacturing (13.8%, following a YoY decline of 32.0%)

China’s new outsourcing project contract sum for the period was 458.54 billion yuan, for a YoY rise of 2.1%, while labouring staff dispatched abroad totalled 82,000, bringing total overseas labour to 787,000.

New contract projects worth over $50 million were 230 in total for the January – April period, and worth $53.8 billion in total, or 82.2% of all new contract value.

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