ODI set to see steady expansion in 2023

China's outbound direct investment, or ODI, is expected to grow steadily in 2023, thanks to its optimized COVID-19 response and companies' strong willingness to expand their market presence across the world, analysts and business executives said on Friday.

Even though facing an adverse external environment, the country's ODI rose 5.2 percent year-on-year to 985.37 billion yuan ($144.91 billion) in 2022, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

Apart from benefiting from the tangible growth of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership pact, experts said the growth of China's ODI last year was mainly driven by domestic companies' improved ODI structure, with investment mainly flowing into sectors including leasing and business services, manufacturing, and wholesale and retail.

The Ministry of Commerce said that China's ODI in wholesale and retail sectors soared 19.5 percent on a yearly basis to $21.1 billion last year, while investment in manufacturing, and leasing and business services went up 17.4 percent and 5.8 percent year-on-year, respectively.

China's optimized COVID-19 control policies and eased travel restrictions will not only encourage its exporters to travel abroad to win more orders, but also increase Chinese companies' merger and acquisition activities in overseas markets this year, especially in developed markets, as well as in BRI and RCEP-related markets, said Wang Xiaohong, deputy head of the information department of the Beijing-based China Center for International Economic Exchanges.

Although the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic may continue to impact global cross-border investment in the short to medium term, Chinese companies have already altered their investment strategies and are counting on opportunities generated by multilateral and bilateral free-trade deals, as well as fast-growing business sectors to ensure stable financial returns, said Bai Ming, deputy director of international market research at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation in Beijing.

China's economic recovery will continue to support the country's outbound investment and global growth, which will generate business opportunities for companies.

In a recent report on the global economic outlook, US investment bank Goldman Sachs predicted that China's growth is set to accelerate as the country reopens sooner than expected. The full recovery in China's domestic demand from COVID-19 is estimated to raise global GDP by around 1 percent through the end of this year, the report said.

Loctek Ergonomic Technology Corp, a Ningbo, Zhejiang province-based office products manufacturer, has been heading in that direction. The company announced in January that it will invest more than $100 million in building an overseas warehouse park in Stanislaus County, California, to bolster its sales and offer warehouse and logistics services to other Chinese exporters in the United States.

Xiang Lehong, chairman of Loctek Ergonomic, said that since more US retailers rely on online sales to maintain growth, this has inevitably had an impact on sales at brick-and-mortar stores.

This trend has pushed many domestic companies to invest more in cross-border e-commerce business in both developed and developing markets, such as the US, France and Thailand, in recent years, he said.

Echoing that sentiment, Yang Tao, director-general of the comprehensive affairs department of the Ministry of Commerce, said that investing in projects in areas such as green, digital and new infrastructure has also become a popular choice for many Chinese companies in overseas markets.

Zhou Lanxu contributed to this story.