Chinese Outbound Investment in the European Union - 中国对欧盟境外投资报告 Go back »

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Europe is viewed by Chinese investors as a safe, stable destination for investment. It has a large consumer market for sales of goods and services, as well as advanced technologies, an educated workforce and desirable brands that could be acquired to help their competitiveness both domestically and internationally. Operating in the EU, however, is not considered easy and there are numerous obstacles often relating to bureaucratic procedures and high costs. Evidence indicates that there will be increased future investments from China into the EU and if the policy makers of both regions can positively address key issues, this investment relationship
can develop further.

Chinese ODI has been increasing since the mid-2000s to reach nearly USD 65 billion in investment flow over the twelve months of 2011, and the trend of Chinese companies investing in Europe has become more prominent in the public sphere. Increasing ODI is a key goal of the Chinese government and is seen as a key tool in advancing its economic development, with Europe becoming a more frequent destination as China moves beyond making investments focussed on securing resources and on to acquiring advanced technologies, expertise and brands.

The results gathered from this survey indicate that Chinese companies are mostly looking to access the European market to sell their goods and services, while a smaller, but increasing number are looking to acquire technologies, expertise and brands through mergers & acquisitions (M&A) with European companies to improve their capacity to compete both at home and abroad. Data gathered, both through this survey and from external sources, indicates that to date, the majority of Chinese investments into the EU have been relatively small in size but larger M&A deals are becoming more common and this is likely to continue to increase in the future.

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