China’s outward FDI ranks No.1 globally for the first time

ISLAMABAD, Sept. 29 (Gwadar Pro)-China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) ranks first globally for the first time, and Pakistan makes it to top 10 among BRI countries and top 20 globally in China’s OFDI, the Annual Statistical Communique of China’s Outward Foreign Direct Investment 2020 showed.

The Communique is jointly issued by the Ministry of Commerce of China, China’s National Bureau of Statistics and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange on September 29.

The Communique also highlights that China’s OFDI overtakes the U.S. with an amount of $153.71 billion in 2020, which represents a 12.3% increase year-on-year.

A total of eighteen industrial sectors are covered in China’s OFDI 2020. Regionwise, the largest share goes to Hong Kong, China, which accounts for 58%.

According to the statistics released, China’s OFDI stock amounts to $2.58 trillion at the end of 2020, remaining the third largest in the world, following the United States ($8.13 trillion) and the Netherlands ($3.8 trillion). For five consecutive years, the flow of China’s OFDI has been accounting for over 10 percent of the world.

As of the end of last year, among the 45,000 enterprises set up by Chinese investors in 189 countries, 11,000 are located in countries along the “Belt and Road”. In last year alone, China’s direct investment in BRI countries reached $22.54 billion, representing a 20.6% increase and the highest since 2013. 

China has been Pakistan's largest trading partner for six years in a row. It is learned in the tenth Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) meeting that CPEC has brought a total of $25.4 billion of direct investment to Pakistan over the past eight years, creating over 75,000 jobs for local people. 

In recent developments, eight Chinese factories with $845 million investment become operational in Allama Iqbal Industrial Zone, Faisalabad under CPEC, and a $15 billion investment is ready for the petrochemical sector in Gwadar, the heart of multi-billion-dollar CPEC infrastructure projects that began in 2013.

Coming to the second phase of CPEC with industries and Special Economic Zones (SEZs) as a priority, more direct Chinese investment is expected to be attracted to the country, especially with the facilitation provided by the one-window operation.