China's outbound investment up 1.8% in first two months

China's non-financial outbound direct investment grew 1.8 percent year-on-year to 107.86 billion yuan ($15.5 billion) in the first two months of this year, the Ministry of Commerce announced on Thursday.

In the meantime, Chinese firms invested in 1,733 businesses in 147 countries and regions, and sent 39,000 personnel abroad to support their projects and operations, said Gao Feng, the ministry's spokesman.

Chinese companies invested $2.72 billion in 48 economies related to the Belt and Road Initiative between January and February, growing by 18.3 percent from the same period a year earlier.

The structure of outbound investment continued to diversify, with investment mainly going into such sectors as leasing and commercial services, and wholesale and retail, as well as manufacturing and mining businesses, according to the ministry.

Chinese companies invested $6.33 billion into the leasing and commercial service sectors in the past two months, surging 43.2 percent year-on-year. They became the fastest -growing areas in attracting Chinese capital in the meantime.

Chinese firms signed 115 project deals with a contract value of more than $50 million in the first two months of 2020, accounting for 83.9 percent of the total contract value signed by Chinese companies during this period. Those projects were mainly involved in industries, including transportation infrastructure development, telecommunication and petrochemical engineering.