2017 ODI Report: China's overseas investing slows down

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01:57

China's Ministry of Commerce has released new figures on China's outbound direct investment (ODI) in 2017. They show a drop compared to the year before. Meanwhile, the global ODI has decreased in two successive years. To prevent risks of over-rapid growth in ODI, China keeps strengthening regulatory scrutiny. CGTN's Wang Yuan has more.

In 2017, China's outbound direct investment outflows reached 158 billion US dollars, down 19.3 percent compared with the previous year.

This was the first drop in growth of Chinese ODI since 2003 -- when the government first started reporting these numbers. However, China's 2017 figure still ranked third in the world. And they covered a wide range of activity.

ZHANG XINGFU, DEPUTY DIRECTOR-GENERAL OUTWARD INVESTMENT DEPT., COMMERCE MINISTRY "In 2017, China's ODI covered 18 major categories. Investments flew into fields like commercial services, manufacturing, finance, wholesaling and retail."

Meanwhile, China's investments in Europe and Africa were on the rise. Investments in Belt & Road countries rose by 30 percent. As a result, Chinese enterprises abroad have helped boost tax revenue and employment in those host countries.

But with growth also comes problems, such as investing too heavily or with questionable legality.

So the Chinese government plans to further strengthen its oversight.

ZHANG XINGFU, DEPUTY DIRECTOR-GENERAL OUTWARD INVESTMENT DEPT., COMMERCE MINISTRY "In order to prevent potential systemic risk brought on by overly fast growth in outward investments, the government is strengthening oversight of compliance, to guide enterprises to make rational investments."

Officials also say the government will streamline administrative services to ensure that outward investments are healthy and stable. Wang Yuan, CGTN.