Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) made up 80 percent of China's total overseas investment in the first half of 2005, according to figures released by the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM).

    Overseas M&A investment by Chinese companies was 182.5 percent up over the same period last year, according to an official with MOFCOM's Department of Foreign Economic Cooperation.

China's overseas investment is expected to maintain momentum this year, with M&A playing a prominent role, he said.

The country's overseas direct investment reached 2.5 billion USdollars in the first seven months of the year, 75 percent of which was in Asia.

According to the statistics, in the first eight months of 2005,China reported 11.75 billion US dollars from contractual projects, mainly in Asia and Africa, up 20.9 percent year on year.

The figures also show total earnings by Chinese workers workingabroad of 2.85 billion US dollars for the January-August period, 31.6 percent up over the same period last year.

These workers work in HK, Macao and Taiwan and countries like Japan, Singapore, the Republic of Korea and the United States.

Source: Xinhua