China non-financial outbound direct investment down 2.1% in Jan.-July

China's non-financial outbound direct investment (ODI) dropped 2.1 percent year on year to 423.7 billion yuan (or 60.3 billion U.S. dollars) in the first seven months of this year, the commerce ministry said Thursday.

The contract value of newly signed overseas projects reached 855.7 billion yuan during the January-July period, a year-on-year increase of 4.3 percent, said Gao Feng, spokesperson for the commerce ministry.

Projects including general construction, petrochemical, and water conservancy construction saw rapid growth in contract value in the first seven months, increasing 40.8 percent, 12.4 percent and 62.9 percent year on year, respectively.

Meanwhile, China's investment into countries along the Belt and Road rose 28.9 percent year on year to 10.3 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 17 percent of the total ODI during the period, up 4.5 percentage points from the same period last year, said Gao.

Investment into some sectors registered rapid growth. The ODI mainly flowed to sectors including leasing and business services, manufacturing as well as wholesale and retail industries, accounting for 38.3 percent, 16.4 percent, and 15.2 percent, respectively.

(Cover via VCG)