Shanghai and New York, December 17, 2009 — Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs) continued their international activities and showed a strong growth in their assets abroad in 2007, according to the results of the second survey of Chinese MNEs investing outside China. The report on the survey, released today by the School of Management at Fudan University and the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment (VCC) at Columbia University in New York, draws mainly on 2007 data but also includes information on Chinese outward investment in 2008 and 2009. According to the most recent figures from the Ministry of Commerce, Chinese investment abroad fell in the first half of this year but recovered very strongly in the third quarter, to stand at nearly USD 33 billion by the end of September. 　

The Fudan-VCC survey report identifies 18 multinationals and ranks them on the basis of their foreign assets. These 18 companies are among the largest outward investors from China. In 2007, they jointly accounted for:

- USD 106 billion in foreign assets,

- 133,674 persons in foreign employment, and

- USD 91 billion in foreign sales.

They also had 554 foreign affiliates (branches, subsidiaries, etc.) in 174 countries.

The leading company on the list of 18 was the CITIC Group, a diversified conglomerate which accounted for about 25% of the foreign assets on the list. The Group’s major businesses are in real equity, financial and other services.

Second in line was the China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company, with foreign assets equal to about 20% of the list, 　It was followed by the China State Construction Engineering Corp, with 11% of the list’s assets, and the China National Petroleum Corporation, with just over 6%. Although the size of foreign assets declines steadily as one moves down the list, it is noteworthy that the distribution is nothing like as lopsided as in several other country lists released by the VCC.

The sectoral distribution of the top Chinese outward investors is also fairly even. There are 6 firms in natural-resource-related activities (oil, metals), 5 in manufacturing (cars & trucks, computers), 5 in labour-intensive service industries (construction, transport), and 1 each in utilities and diversified activities.

Some other notable features of Chinese investment abroad in 2007 include the following:　

• There are 5 new companies on this list that were not on the list published a year ago: Huaneng (power), Sinosteel (metals), Sinotrans (transport), Sinotruck (trucks) and ZTE (telecoms).　
• On the other hand, the list continues to be dominated by state-owned/controlled enterprises, as it was last year. All but two of the 18 companies on this year’s list are state-controlled. The ones that are not are Lenovo and Haier. However, the weight of public-sector firms in Chinese outward investment is dropping,　
• The geographic distribution of the foreign affiliates of the 18 companies is uneven, with an emphasis on Asia and Africa.　
• The major foreign acquisition of 2008 was AWO (Awilco Offshore ASA) of Norway, an international marine-well-drilling contractor. The buyer was China National Offshore Oil Corporaion and the price was USD 2.5 billion.　

The survey was conducted in the framework of the Emerging Market Global Players project, a collaborative, international, effort that is led by the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment.　 It brings together researchers on foreign direct investment from leading institutions in emerging markets to generate annual ranking reports on emerging market MNEs. Eight reports have appeared thus far in 2009, on multinationals from Argentina, Brazil, India, Israel, Mexico, Russia, Slovenia & Turkey. Visit www.vcc.columbia.edu for further information.　

The survey report is available at http://www.fdsm.fudan.edu.cn/EN/scires/xsdt.aspx and http://vcc.columbia.edu/projects/#Emerging. EMBARGO: The contents of this report must not be quoted or summarized in the print, broadcast or electronic media before 2:00 p.m. Shanghai time; 7:00 a.m. GMT; and 2:00 a.m. New York time on December 17, 2009.

Chinese multinational companies’ ranking report (in English)

December 18, 2009