China tops in greenfield investment, surpassing US

From January through to April this year, Chinese companies announced 126 new greenfield investments overseas, totalling an estimated $29.43 billion, the Financial Times reported.

According to fDi Markets–an FT data service–it's the first time China has been the number one greenfield exporter, globally. It's surpassed the US, which made $22.8 billion in investments, as a generator of greenfield capital investment on new greenfield projects.

China ranks sixth globally in terms of the number of projects over the same period.

The top destinations for Chinese capital were Mozambique, where an estimated $4 billion of investments were made by China National Petroleum, followed by India with $3.8 billion, Algeria with $3.43 billion, France with $3.41 billion and Malaysia with $2.05 billion, respectively, according to the report.

In terms of the number of projects, the most popular destination were India, with 20 projects, and the US, with 15 projects.

China National Petroleum was the largest outbound Chinese investor in the first four months this year, responsible for an estimated $6.73 billion in new investments. Dalian Wanda followed with $4.3 billion worth of investments. China State Construction Engineering Corporation, China Railway Engineering Corporation and China General Technology Group followed with investments of $3.3 billion, $2.03 billion and $ 1.6 billion respectively.