China’s investment in Belt and Road countries warms up in Q1

China’s investment in the Belt and Road countries continued to rise in the first quarter of 2017, despite an overall decrease in the country’s outbound direct investment.

In the first three months of 2017, Chinese enterprises invested $2.95 billion in the non-financial sectors of 43 countries along the Belt and Road route, accounting for 14.4 percent of total outbound investment in that period. That figure is up 5.4 percent compared with the same period last year, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce on April 18.

In the first quarter of 2017, total non-financial outbound investment reached $20.5 billion, registering a dramatic drop of 48.8 percent year on year. The investments span 129 countries and regions.

China’s outbound investment is flowing mainly into manufacturing, business services, information transmission, software and information technology services.

A total of 952 contracts have been inked with 61 countries along the route. The contracts have turned over $14.39 billion, up 4.7 percent year on year, accounting for 49.2 percent of total turnover in the period.

New contracts have substantially driven export growth. In the first three months of 2017, commodities worth a total of $3.47 billion were exported, up 28.4 percent year on year.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *