China’s outbound investment reshaping the global economy

By WILLIAM PESEK – Asia Times

“China’s ODI has risen substantially since the turn of the millennium,” says Frederic Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC. “Only starting to venture out into the international investment landscape in the mid-2000s, China was, in a sense, ‘late to the game.’ However, after rapid increases in the first half of the 2010s, China’s stock of ODI now surpasses that of Japan, Germany and the UK.”

And there’s still room for exponential growth. As of the end of 2023, Neumann notes, the overall stock of Chinese outward investment was just one-third that of the US, and still small relative to the size of China’s economy. At 15.7% of gross domestic product (GDP), Neumann says, “it’s well below” that of the major developed economies and the global average of 34%.