Based on the analysis of “FDI Markets” of the Financial Times, Nihon Keizai Shimbun said that the overseas investment of China’s “the Belt and Road” initiative is changing: large-scale infrastructure is decreasing, and soft investment in high-tech fields is increasing.
Japanese media analyzed the investment content of Chinese enterprises in establishing legal entities, factories, and sales channels in foreign countries, and found that the growth was evident in the digital field. Compared with the year 2013 when the “the Belt and Road” was launched, the investment scale of IT information technology, communication and electronic parts will increase six times to 17.6 billion US dollars in 2022. In the West African country of Senegal, a government data center built in 2021 in cooperation with China, with servers provided by Huawei.
According to a report by Japanese media, the growth rate is greater in the field of biology. In 2022, it reached 1.8 billion US dollars, an increase of 29 times compared to 2013. The development of COVID-19 vaccine is an important manifestation of biological investment. Etana Biotechnology, an emerging Indonesian company, has obtained mRNA vaccine development technology from Suzhou Aibo Biotechnology, China. The vaccine factory was completed in 2022.
The report also states that China is reducing investment in large-scale infrastructure. For example, the development of fossil fuels such as coal has been reduced to 1% in the past 10 years; Investment in metal fields such as aluminum manufacturing also decreased after reaching its peak in 2018.
In fact, investing in soft areas costs less than investing in hard infrastructure. From the investment amount of each project, the fossil fuel sector is 760 million US dollars, and the mineral sector is 160 million US dollars, which is a relatively large scale. In contrast, each project in the biological field costs $60 million, while IT services cost $20 million, resulting in lower investment and higher cost-effectiveness.
Post time: May-11-2023