China remained a global leader in outbound direct investment in 2023, with the annual outbound direct investment (ODI) rising 8.7 percent to 177 billion U.S. dollars, according to an official report on Tuesday.
Jointly released by the Ministry of Commerce, the National Bureau of Statistics, and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, the report pointed out that investment from China has taken a slightly larger share of the world's total ODI, making up 11.4 percent, up 0.5 percentage points from that in 2022.
Meanwhile, Chinese companies have opened affiliates or offices in more than 80 percent of countries or regions worldwide, with Asia and Africa as two emerging magnets. By the end of 2023, Chinese investors had established 48,000 overseas enterprises in 189 countries and regions worldwide.
The report also noted that commercial services, wholesale and retail, manufacturing and finance together accounted for nearly 80 percent of that amount.
During the same period, nearly 80 percent of China's ODI went to Asia, showing a 13.9 percent increase from the previous year, it said. In 2023, China's direct investment in countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative reached 40.71 billion U.S. dollars, a 31.5 percent increase from the previous year and accounting for 23 percent of the total ODI flow for that year.
China's outbound direct investment up 8.7 pct in 2023
China launched a Smart Dragon-3 carrier rocket, also known as Jielong-3, from the waters near the city of Haiyang in east China's Shandong Province on Tuesday, placing eight satellites into planned orbit.
The commercial rocket blasted off at 10:31 a.m. (Beijing Time), carrying satellites including Tianyi-41 and “Hong Kong Youth Sci-tech Innovation,” the first satellite developed by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).
The launch marks the 4th flight mission for the Smart Dragon-3 carrier rocket series.
Smart Dragon-3 commercial carrier rocket is developed by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.
The four-stage solid-propellant Smart Dragon-3 rocket is a type of cost-effective and highly reliable launch vehicle that is mainly used for launching spacecraft to the sun-synchronous orbit or low Earth orbit, according to the developer.
"Our Jielong-3 rocket used the 'Oriental Maritime Space Port' offshore satellite launch vessel for the first time, which means stronger support and higher launch efficiency. We also used the large yaw technology to make our landing area safer, so that in the future, we will have different options according to the weight of the satellite, to make the launching more cost-saving," said Jin Xin, an engineer at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.
The "Hong Kong Youth Sci-tech Innovation" satellite is the first satellite funded and supported by the Innovation and Technology Commission of the HKSAR government. It is also the world's first science satellite using an AI large-model. It is equipped with a high-resolution optical remote sensing camera and high-performance computing power payload, realizing key technologies and functions such as high-resolution earth remote sensing observation, and on-orbit intelligent data processing.
"More than 90 percent of the satellite's research and development staff are young teachers, students and engineers, so it is named 'Hong Kong Youth Sci-tech Innovation.' We will carry out new technology verification such as on-orbit reasoning training of large AI models in orbit," said Guo Tao, chief designer of the satellite.
China's Smart Dragon-3 rocket sends eight satellites into orbit
