Since the beginning of this year, China's foreign investment and cooperation has shown a stronger trend of recovery, especially the growth trend of investment and cooperation with countries along the "Belt and Road" has become increasingly stable.

In the first quarter, investment and contracted projects in countries along the "Belt and Road" continued to lead China's foreign investment market. According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, in the first quarter, China’s non-financial direct investment in countries along the “Belt and Road” reached US$5.26 billion, a year-on-year increase of 19%, accounting for 19.5% of the total in the same period, an increase of 1.7 percentage points from the same period last year. The newly signed contract value of contracted projects in countries along the “Belt and Road” was 24.64 billion US dollars, and the completed turnover was 15.97 billion US dollars, accounting for 52% and 55.1% of the total in the same period respectively.

Lv Yue, a professor at the National (Beijing) Institute for Opening-up at the University of International Business and Economics, said that in November last year, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized at the third "Belt and Road" construction symposium, "It is necessary to steadily expand new areas of cooperation. , green, digital, innovation and other new fields, and cultivate new growth points of cooperation." Against this background, since the beginning of this year, under the complex and changeable international political and economic environment, China’s investment and cooperation with countries along the “Belt and Road” has risen against the trend, showing strong resilience.

"It is expected that the momentum of steady growth will continue in the second quarter." In Lu Yue's view, under the new situation, China's investment and cooperation with countries along the "Belt and Road" is facing important opportunities: First, in the continuous and in-depth development of world multi-polarization, international new and old In the interweaving and restructuring of regulations, China's international status and international influence have been significantly improved. The core concepts of jointly building the Belt and Road Initiative and joint consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits have also been written into the outcome documents of important international mechanisms such as the United Nations, which will help continue to promote the high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative. Second, in the face of blocked shipping and high freight rates, China-Europe freight trains have opened up the "Belt and Road" international trade channels, adding more momentum to ensure the stability and integrity of the global supply chain and industrial chain and jointly build the "Belt and Road" investment cooperation. Third, since the outbreak of COVID-19, China has provided 2.2 billion doses of vaccines to more than 120 countries and international organizations, most of which are countries jointly building the Belt and Road Initiative. This has provided support and assistance for countries to fight the epidemic and promote the resumption of work and production.

Behind the opportunities are challenges. "On the one hand, the world is undergoing rapid changes that have not been seen in a century. Fierce competition brought about by a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is unprecedented. Global issues such as climate change and epidemic prevention and control have an unprecedented impact on human society. The 'Belt and Road' international environment is becoming more and more complex. On the other hand, the global foreign exchange market fluctuates frequently, and the prices of financial assets in some countries have fallen a lot. The market risks faced by my country's financial investments in countries along the 'Belt and Road' are still relatively high. In terms of non-financial direct investment, the institutional support system of some co-construction countries is not perfect, the supply of financial, insurance and legal services is insufficient, and there is a structural matching problem with the project demand. At the same time, the political problems and debt problems of the invested countries It also increases investment risks." Lu Yue further said.

Driven by the growth in investment and cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, China's outward investment and cooperation has seen a more obvious recovery momentum.

According to the data of the Ministry of Commerce, in the first quarter, China's foreign direct investment in the whole industry was 217.76 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.6% (equivalent to 34.29 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 7.9%). Among them, foreign non-financial direct investment was 170.95 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.3% (equivalent to 26.92 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 8.5%). The flow to the wholesale and retail industry was 5.45 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 36.3%; the flow to the manufacturing industry was 4.35 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 13.3%.

In terms of foreign contracted projects, in the first quarter, the turnover of China's foreign contracted projects was 184.16 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.7% (equivalent to US$29 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 3.7%); the newly signed contract value was 300.94 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 13.3% (equivalent to 47.39 billion yuan) billion, down 11.5% year-on-year). There were 207 newly signed projects with a contract value of more than 50 million US dollars, of which 109 were projects with a contract value of over 100 million US dollars.

Lu Yue said that from the data point of view, China's foreign investment cooperation in the first quarter was stable and showed resilience, which was mainly reflected in the increase in the growth rate of non-financial direct investment from the decline in the same period last year. At the same time, outbound investment in various sectors such as wholesale and retail and manufacturing also maintained positive growth. There may be three reasons for this: First, China has always insisted on opening up to the outside world and encouraged enterprises to explore diversified channels for foreign investment and cooperation. Second, due to the rising labor costs, resource costs and environmental costs in China, some products have certain comparative advantages in production in some countries. Third, because labor-intensive manufacturing has a strong ability to absorb surplus labor, and China, as the world's largest manufacturing country, has relatively rich production capacity and capital reserves, and foreign investment can meet the needs of both sides.

Talking about the development trend of China's outbound investment and cooperation, Lu Yue predicted that in the future, Chinese enterprises' outbound investment will likely continue to make efforts in key regions and industries. The digital economy and cooperation in anti-epidemic materials provide continuous momentum for the rapid recovery of the economies of various countries.

Previous: The rapid development of global e-commerce under the epidemic
Next: None