China boosts outbound investment

Officials tout cutting of red tape for companies

China has cut red tape and rigid administrative approval procedures to encourage outbound investment which may exceed the foreign investment in this country for this year, officials said on Tuesday.

The country's top economic planner has undertaken a major breakthrough in managing outbound investment by Chinese firms, Gu Dawei, head of Foreign Capital and Overseas Investment Department at the National Development and Reform Commission, told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday.

"Except for very few cases subject to special regulation, [administrative] approval for outbound investment has been abolished," Gu said, noting the new rule is part of reform and opening-up efforts.

The exceptions refer to investment projects in countries under international sanctions or under war, or in "sensitive" industries, he said without further elaborating.

About 99 percent of the review and approval procedures for outbound investment projects had been wiped out under the new rule compared with 2013, Gu said, noting Chinese firms may speed up the pace of their overseas expansion.

Another regulator of Chinese firms' overseas investment, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) also loosened control for outbound investment in a new rule released in October, vowing to facilitate domestic firms' investment abroad by adopting a filing system rather than an approval system for most of the cases.

Chinese firms made a total of $81.88 billion in outbound investment during the first 10 months of this year, up 17.8 percent year-on-year, Shen Danyang, spokesman of the MOFCOM, said at a press conference on Tuesday.

The MOFCOM's data showed that China's outbound investment is catching up with the foreign direct investment in the country, which amounted to $95.88 billion for the January-October period.

Top destinations of Chinese firms' investment include the EU, the US, Japan, Australia and Russia, which in total accounted for 74.2 percent of the overseas investment.

Chinese companies made $4.19 billion worth of investment in the US for the first 10 months of this year, growing 30.5 percent from a year earlier, while Chinese investment in the EU and Japan grew by 192.6 percent and 128.6 percent year-on-year respectively.

In October however, non-financial outbound investment reached $6.92 billion, down 12.2 percent from a year earlier, mainly due to a high base effect, according to MOFCOM.