Outward direct investment to maintain fast growth pace

China's outward direct investment will maintain a "quite fast, probably 10 percent" growth pace this year, Shen Danyang, the spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, said on Monday.

"It will be a new feature for China's outward direct investment to maintain a relatively robust growth and exceed the inflow of foreign direct investment in the near future," Shen said.

"It's normal for China's outward investment to maintain growth and the ODI decrease in the first half of this year was caused by the large base figure of last year," he said.

During the January-July period this year, China's ODI in non-financial sectors rose by 4 percent from a year earlier to $52.55 billion, according to the ministry.

For July alone, ODI surged 84.9 percent year-on-year to $9.21 billion, the ministry said.

By the end of July 2014, China's accumulated ODI in non-financial sectors had reached $578.2 billion, according to the ministry.

Zhou Mi, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, said that China's ODI will maintain the momentum of fast growth.

"China's economy is at a new development phase and the restructuring of growth model means that domestic companies need to go abroad for using global resources. Meanwhile, the slow recovery in global economy also builds a favorable environment for different economies to attract Chinese investment," Zhou said.

In the first seven months of this year, China's outward investment in the European Union surged 293.1 percent year-on-year, Japan by 160.9 percent and Russia by 91.1 percent. Spending in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations rose 9.1 percent to $2.89 billion and that in the United States increased 12.8 percent to $2.82 billion in the same period, according to the ministry.