leading forces for China’s investments in the EU. In the top 20 cross-border merger
and acquisition transactions towards the EU conducted by China from the 1st
quarter of 2006 to the 1st quarter of 2012, 90 % of the investors were state-owned
enterprises and sovereign wealth funds. On the contrary, half of the investors in the
top 20 cases of investments towards China made by the EU were private enter-
prises. More and more private Chinese enterprises are seeking opportunities for
overseas mergers and acquisitions; private Chinese enterprises are expected to
speed up overseas investments. The largest amount among investments made by
Chinese enterprises in the EU was invested in the areas of energy, public utilities,
mining and infrastructure; the largest number of transactions occurred in the area of
industrial products, followed by telecommunications media and technology, retail
and consumption.
China’s investments in Germany have steadily grown in recent years and
overtook those in the UK in 2011, accounting for 20 % of the total cross-border
transactions towards the EU conducted by China, and as high as 28 % in the 1st
quarter of 2012. In 2011, France replaced the UK as the largest investor from the
EU in China; France’s investments in China accounted for 26 % and 35 % in 2011
and the 1st quarter of 2012 respectively.^12
According to a report released by Rhodium International in February, 2013, as
the European Debt Crisis brought about investment opportunities, investments
absorbed from China by Europe were two times that from the USA in the past two
years.^13 This report indicated that China was vigorously pushing forward invest-
ments in Europe; China’s total investments in Europe were fewer than one billion
USD on average before 2008 but surged to 3 billion USD in 2009 and 2010,
10 billion USD in 2011 and 2012. China’s investments in Europe were concen-
trated in the areas of energy, the public sector, automobile and parts manufacturing,
mechanical and equipment manufacturing, chemicals, etc.
In addition, China’sfinancial investment in Europe became the new bright spot
in China-EU economic and trade cooperation. In the case offinancial investments,
China and the EU increasingly attached importance to building a goodfinancial
service environment for facilitating financial investments from both sides. In
September, 2011, China and the UK vowed, in the Fourth UK-China Economic and
Financial Dialogue, to continue intensifiedfinancial cooperation, to launch capital
market audit supervision cooperation negotiations and to promote a healthy
development of capital markets in both countries.^14 This is beneficial not only for
creating a good environment for the development of capital markets in both
countries, but also for boosting alignment between the two countries in audit
supervision standards and in making it convenient for both sides to makefinancial
capital enter the other side’s market. In November, 2011, when visiting China, the
British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said that the UK would open
(^12) http://www.chinairn.com/news/20121122/139370.html.
(^13) Hanemann ( 2013 , February).
(^14) http://www.chinese-embassy.org.uk/chn/zywl/t857161.htm.
3 China-EU Economic and Trade Relations 77