At present, the century-old changes are evolving profoundly and industrial transformation is in full swing. Against this background, China's overseas investment and cooperation are showing a positive development trend. According to the data from the Ministry of Commerce, China's overseas non-financial direct investment was 343.47 billion yuan in January-April, an increase of 18.7% year-on-year.

This is not only another year-on-year growth of China's non-financial direct investment abroad, but also an accelerating growth rate. In January-February, China's non-financial direct investment abroad increased by 10% year-on-year, and in January-March, it increased by 12.5% year-on-year.

In this regard, Lu Yue, professor at the National Institute of International Strategy at the University of International Business and Economics and executive dean of the Institute of Global Innovation and Governance, said that judging from the data, China's overall outward non-financial direct investment has rebounded and improved since the beginning of this year, with the investment amount, number of investment projects and proportion of global total investment all performing well.

Analyzing the reasons, Lv Yue believes that it can be attributed to three points: First, with the continuous improvement of China's outward investment promotion mechanism, policy support and legal protection are provided for the development of outward investment. Local governments have actively responded to national policies, taking free trade pilot zones and overseas economic and trade cooperation zones as the starting point, building a policy promotion, service guarantee and risk prevention and control system for outward investment, improving the level of outward investment cooperation, and further stimulating the vitality of local outward investment. Second, the "Belt and Road" initiative leads a new chapter of cooperation, and the co-construction countries have become a new engine for investment growth. As a global public product, the "Belt and Road" initiative is very popular. The good business environment and cooperation situation provided by the co-construction countries provide Chinese companies with a broad development space and stable market expectations for "going out". The growth rate of investment in the co-construction countries of the "Belt and Road" is significantly higher than the overall growth rate, and has become a key area for driving China's outward direct investment. Third, the willingness of enterprises to operate internationally continues to increase, and the seabed natural gas is becoming more solid. The "2023 Survey Report on the Current Situation and Intention of Chinese Enterprises' Outward Investment" recently released by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade shows that more than 80% of the surveyed companies have the intention to expand and maintain outward investment, an increase of nearly 10% over the previous year, and more than 90% of the companies are optimistic about the future prospects of outward investment. At the same time, Chinese companies are constantly strengthening their brand management, management models, products and technological innovation, enabling them to go global with greater confidence.

The outstanding performance of the “Belt and Road” market mentioned by Lv Yue is clearly seen in the data. According to the data from the Ministry of Commerce, from January to April, Chinese enterprises made non-financial direct investments of 77.77 billion yuan in the countries participating in the “Belt and Road” initiative, a year-on-year increase of 20.4%.

In Lv Yue's view, the rapid growth of China's direct investment in the countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative is due to the inevitability of economic complementarity and the necessity of deepening cooperation. On the one hand, China and the countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative have strong economic complementarity and huge potential for investment cooperation. China and the participating countries have their own characteristics and strong complementarity in economic development, industrial structure and resource advantages, and the foundation of investment cooperation is solid and the space is broad. At the same time, with the economic development of the participating countries, the demand for infrastructure and related services continues to grow, providing Chinese companies with a huge overseas investment market. On the other hand, the Belt and Road Initiative cooperation mechanism has been deepened and improved, and investment cooperation has been further deepened and implemented. Under the Belt and Road Initiative, the multi-level investment cooperation mechanism has become increasingly mature. The establishment and improvement of multilateral and bilateral economic cooperation mechanisms, production capacity cooperation platforms and diversified financing channels have promoted investment cooperation to go deeper and more practical. In addition, the coordinated promotion of the five major areas of policy communication, infrastructure connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration and people-to-people connectivity has also provided strong support for investment cooperation.

"The Belt and Road market is growing rapidly, mainly reflected in the expansion of investment cooperation areas and the diversification of investment cooperation partners." Lu Yue further said that in the field of investment cooperation, China and the countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative have carried out in-depth cooperation in many emerging fields such as greening and digitalization. At present, infrastructure construction is still the key area of investment cooperation in the Belt and Road Initiative, but investment cooperation in emerging fields such as greening and digitalization has made significant progress. In 2023, China and the countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative signed 23 new investment cooperation memoranda in the fields of green, digital, and blue economy. The investment scope of Chinese companies has also expanded to industries such as finance, technology, agriculture, and culture. In terms of investment cooperation partners, China's investment cooperation circle with the countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative is getting bigger and bigger. Investment cooperation with the countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative is closer, especially with Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Hungary and other countries, which has continued to heat up and become a model of win-win cooperation in the Belt and Road Initiative. According to data from fDi Markets, a data service agency under the Financial Times, in 2023, China's investment in Saudi Arabia accounted for 58.20% of the country's total foreign investment. In addition, investment in Vietnam, Malaysia and Hungary also accounted for more than 35%. In particular, investment in Hungary surged from 3.73% in 2019 to 48.62% in 2023, with a growth rate of 1205.11%, becoming a new highlight of the investment growth of the "Belt and Road".