In recent years, in line with China’s Going Out strategy announced in 2000, China’s overseas investment activities have increased greatly and at increasing rates. By the end of 2009, the total value of China’s outward foreign direct investment had reached US$5.6 billion. Policies have played strong supporting roles in bringing about this trend by facilitating and encouraging Chinese companies to make overseas investments. This working paper summarises these policies based on an analysis of policy changes over time and identifies the main drivers of these changes. It also highlights some key research questions of relevance to deepening understanding of the impacts of Chinese trade and investment in Africa. The project ‘Chinese trade and investment in Africa: Assessing and governing trade-offs to national economies, local livelihoods and forest ecosystems’ project, launched in March 2010, aims to advance understanding of the social, economic and environmental impacts of Chinese investment in commodities or sectors affecting forests and livelihoods in Africa (e.g. timber, mining, agriculture), and to strengthen the capacity of decision-makers in government, civil society and the private sector to enact reforms to maximise social and economic benefits while minimising adverse effects.

In recent years, in line with China's Going Out strategy announced in 2000, China's overseas investment activities have increased greatly and at increasing rates. By the end of 2009, the total value of China's outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) had reached US$5.6 billion (MOFCOM, NBS and SAFE 2009). Policies have played strong supporting roles in bringing about this trend by facilitating and encouraging Chinese companies to make overseas investments. This working paper summarises these policies based on an analysis of policy changes over time and identifies the main drivers of these changes. It ends by highlighting some key research questions of relevance to deepening understanding of the impacts of Chinese trade and investment in Africa. The frequency with which OFDI-related policies are issued is clearly linked with changes in the scale of OFDI investment. From 1979 to 2001, about four related policies were issued each year and overseas investments were limited. After China formally developed its strategy of Going Out in 2000, the frequency of policies increased, to more than 15 per year since 2002. The main aim of relevant policies issued since 2002 has been to boost overseas development. Nevertheless, the foundations of China's OFDI management system were laid in previous periods. Analysis of Chinese policy documents related to OFDI finds that a total of 26 central government agencies have been involved in issuing the policies. More than 50% were issued by ministry-level agencies responsible for commerce and foreign exchange management, and 20% by agencies responsible for financial management, including the Ministry of Finance, the central bank and banking regulatory agencies ...

Since China adopted its 'open door' policy in 1978, which altered its development strategy from self-sufficiency to active participation in the world market, its goal has remained unchanged: to assist the readjustment of China's economy, to coordinate its modernization programs, and to improve its quality of life. With the 1997 launch of the 'Going Global' policy, an outward focus regarding foreign investment was added, to circumvent trade barriers and improve the competitiveness of Chinese firms. In order to accommodate inward and outward investment, China's participation in the international investment regime has underpinned its efforts to join multilateral investment-related legal instruments and conclude international investment agreements. This collection, compiled by award-winning scholar Professor Julien Chaisse, explores the three distinct tracks of China's investment policy and strategy: bilateral agreements including those with the US and the EU; regional agreements including the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific; and global initiatives, spear-headed by China's presidency of the G20 and its 'Belt and Road initiative'. The book's overarching topic is whether these three tracks compete with each other, or whether they complement one another - a question of profound importance for the country's political and economic future and world investment governance.

Mainland China businesses are going global, transforming the country from a manufacturing export platform into an overseas investment powerhouse. China Goes Global is the most thorough and up-to-date empirical analysis of the accelerating effort of Chinese companies to go global by investing overseas. It details the overall trends of this activity with respect to its sectors, channels, overseas targets, and particular firms, along the role of Chinese Government policy in facilitating business enterprise globalization. The book offers readers an enterprise level of view outward expansion by Chinese firms that is focused not only on the big-names, but also less well-known, but equally important trailblazing enterprises. In doing so it offers practical suggestions on how firms can tackle the challenges encountered when expanding outward.

This investigation uses state-mobilized globalization as a framework to understand China's capitalism and emergence as a global power.

Chinese outward direct investment (ODI) is growing rapidly in recent years. As an important phenomenon in the global economy, China’s ODI deserves more thorough analysis. This book looks at China’s ODI activities from multi-perspectives. With the rebalancing of China’s own structural growth and China’s shift towards a net capital exporter, her initiatives such as "One Belt One Road (OBOR)" have brought profound implications to the traditional super-sovereign or multilateral financial and investment cooperation mechanism. As her investment destinations and investment methods become more diversified and sophisticated, this book offers unique and refreshing insight into China’s ODI activities. The book covers the whole range of history and policy development of China’s ODI and analyses China’s ODI trends and characteristics in the recent years. It reviews China’s major policy changes after the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party and how they may impact China’s ODI strategy and activities. The book addresses potential challenges and risks of rising ODI activities from practitioners’ perspective, and discusses how recipient countries may react and respond to the surge of Chinese capital. The book also offers policy implications and future research agenda in relation to the Chinese investments.