China's increasing outbound investment is growing into an important force driving economic and social development in widely scattered investment destinations. Chinese annual outbound investment is likely to reach 367.3 billion US dollars in 2022 and then China will become the world's largest cross-border investment contributor, according to latest report issued by think tank Center for China and Globalization (CCG) on November 10.
China recorded 123.12 billion US dollars of outbound investment in 2014, 14.2 percent higher than that in previous year, according to statistics with the Ministry of Commerce (MoC). Chinese outbound investment surpassed inward foreign investment for the first time in 2014, according to CCG. If reinvestment from overseas profits and investment from the third place are counted, Chinese outbound investment in 2014 was 20 billion US dollars higher than inward foreign investment in 2014, said the report.
In 2014, Chinese outbound investors paid as much as 19.15 billion US dollars of taxes in investment destinations and employed 833,000 local people including 135,000 foreigners in developed economies, said the MoC. Outbound investment in mining sector stood at 17.91 billion US dollars in 2014 as compared with 34.23 billion US dollars in 2013. By end-2014, nearly 300 Chinese companies had invested an accumulated amount of 882.6 billion US dollars outbound in 186 countries and regions, according to the MoC. In particular, overseas mining sector drew over 100 billion US dollars of accumulative investment.
China had invested nearly 200 billion US dollars in overseas petroleum and natural gas sector by the end of 2013, according to a report by CNPC Economics and Technological Research Institute. Chinese investments have not only beefed up local energy supply and transformed energy structure but also made contributions to poverty alleviation, education fairness and people's health there.
In 2014 alone, China National Petroleum Corporation put a water treatment plant for local people in Turkmenistan and built 600,000 square meters of shelters for the displaced refugees in South Sudan. In Nigeria, CNOOC Nigeria ranked 12th among Nigeria's top 100 enterprises in 2014, contributing a lot to local tax revenue income and socioeconomic development. Energy, infrastructure and agriculture ranks the top three fields favored by high-ranking officials of many foreign countries, according to a survey by Oriental Outlook in early 2015.
Chinese companies are suggested investing in traditional energy production facilities in developing countries as well as in renewable energy and smart power grid in developed economies, according to the survey by Oriental Outlook. A basic logic for Chinese investors shall be to improve local energy sufficiency in investment destinations, said Zha Daojiong, a professor with School of International Studies with Peking University.
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