China’s overseas direct investment (ODI) surged last month as a state-owned oil company put nearly US$3 billion into a Dutch transaction, official data showed yesterday, while inbound investment slowed.
ODI jumped 68.2 percent year-on-year to US$7.25 billion, the commerce ministry said, while for the first two months of the year it rose 51 percent to US$17.4 billion.
Meanwhile, foreign direct investment (FDI) into China rose 0.9 percent year-on-year to US$8.56 billion last month, the ministry said. That marked a sharp slowdown from January’s 29.4 percent gain.
Photo: Reuters
Both ODI and FDI exclude financial sectors.
China drew a total of US$119.6 billion of FDI last year, while ODI surged to US$102.9 billion, passing the US$100 billion mark for the first time.
The last month’s surge in ODI was driven by a 10-fold increase in investment in the EU to US$3.36 billion, largely due to oil company PetroChina Co (中石油) pumping US$2.89 billion into the Netherlands, ministry spokesman Shen Danyang (沈丹陽) said.
PetroChina vice chairman Liao Yongyuan (廖永遠) is being investigated for “serious disciplinary violations,” the company said, as an antigraft crackdown reaches deeper into the Chinese state-owned oil giant.
In a brief statement issued late on Monday, PetroChina said the company was operating normally.
Investment in the US soared by 64.8 percent in the first two months of the year from the same period last year, Shen said.
Shen said the euro’s depreciation against the US dollar and the yuan might encourage more Chinese firms to buy up European assets.
In the January-February period, FDI declined 15.9 percent from Japan, with which China is in dispute over territory and wartime history.
From the US it fell by 31.8 percent year-on-year, which Shen attributed to the upturn in the world’s largest economy.
Investment from Saudi Arabia surged nearly tenfold, and that from France and Germany rose by 366.7 percent and 59 percent respectively.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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