The rapid growth in Chinese overseas investment has caught much global attention but can hardly cover its actually small stock. As the Economist magazine described, China is "a relative newcomer to big direct investments."
Chinese official data showed China's external direct investment hit a record of 87.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2012, making it the third largest country in outbound FDI following the United States and Japan.
However, in terms of stock, the accumulated volume of Chinese overseas investment reached 531.94 billion dollars, about one tenth of that of the United States, one third of Germany, and half of Japan.
UN statistics showed the inward FDI in China hit 121 billion dollars in 2012, 38 percent higher than the outward FDI, while the stock of the inward FDI has exceeded 1.3 trillion dollars, 2.5 times more than that of the outward FDI.
Therefore, there is a great space for the growth of China's outward FDI in the future.
As of now, the Chinese economy is at a turning point, where the economic model is shifting from export and investment driven growth to the one powered by domestic demand.
At the same time, China is seeking to climb from the end of the global value chain, featuring low costs and profits, to high productivity and high added value end.
The UN World Investment Report 2013 pointed that the global value chain occupies about 80 percent of global trade, "longer-term, GVCs (global value chain) can be an important avenue for developing countries to build productive capacity, including through technology dissemination and skill building, opening up opportunities for industrial upgrading."
Source: Xinhua
