Advancing Domestic Development Through Overseas Investment

With US$84 billion of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) flows, China became the world's third-largest outward investor in 2012, behind the United States and Japan. This signals impressive progress given that the country ranked only 20th a decade ago, when the ‘going global' policy was launched and outflows during 2000-03 averaged US$3 billion. What are the salient features of these flows and why and how is the government helping Chinese firms to invest abroad? Apart from the speed with which China's OFDI flows have grown, three features are particularly noteworthy