High stakes in investment race

Europe is proving more fertile ground for Chinese investment than the United States.

Top: Jonas Parello-Plesner, a senior policy fellow at the ECFR. Above: Duncan Innes-Ker, senior economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit. Below: Lu Jinyong, director of the China Research Center for Foreign Investment at the University of International Business and Economics. [Top: Provided to China Daily; Other Photos by Liu Zhe / China Daily]

China's ODI in Europe is, in fact 53 percent greater than the $1.39 billion that went Stateside in 2010, according to Ministry of Commerce figures.

Bruce McKern, professor of international business at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai, says Europe has been far more open to Chinese investment than the United States, where there has often been political resistance and where some deals involving Chinese State-owned companies have been blocked by The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).

"Europe has been welcoming to Chinese investment, which is in sharp contrast to the United States," he says.

Duncan Innes-Ker, senior economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit in Beijing, says European countries often don't care where inward investment comes from, so long as it comes.

"I think in Europe it would be no more controversial for a Chinese company to buy an Italian company than a French one. There are a lot of flows like this and I don't think Europe is too concerned," he says.

From an overall macroeconomic perspective, if China's ODI were to become bigger than FDI, it would be potentially good for China's exporters in that it would have the effect of depressing the value of the renminbi, other things being equal.

The Chinese government is consistently accused, particularly by the United States, of keeping the value of its currency artificially low, but a net outflow of capital would be a genuine market adjustment in the currency's value.

"If you are buying more dollars, it eases the pressure on the yuan and with also a reduction of the trade surplus, it would have the effect of reducing its value," adds Innes-Ker.

Michael Pettis, a professor at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management who specializes in Chinese financial markets, is not one who is convinced that China's ODI will overtake its FDI any time soon.

He believes that China's economy will significantly slow from its current near double-digit growth rates, which would have the effect of dampening investment overseas, and that the continuing bleak economic outlook in Europe and North America will also reduce investment opportunities.

"The forecasts are really, really wobbly. We really have no idea. Most of these forecasts are based on the assumption that things will continue as they have for the past decade," he says.

Pettis adds that there are other factors that are likely to depress ODI, most notably the expected appreciation of the yuan, which takes away some of the rationale for overseas investment.

"If you believe the yuan is going to appreciate by 5 percent a year, your investment in, say, France has got to yield 5 percent or more, to offer a better return than just keeping it in the bank in China. That is a pretty big hurdle, particularly when you factor in investment risk," he says.