Even as global financial flows have slowedl, China has dramatically stepped up its foreign investment. Its 2008 overseas mergers and acquisitions were
worth a record $52.1 billion. So far this year, Chinese companies invested $16.3 billion, meaning the total for 2009 could be nearly double last
year's.
China's media are calling the acquisitions an opportunity that comes once in a hundred years, drawing parallels to 1980s Japan.
China investing or acquiring overseas mineral resources companies with relatively low prices during the global economic crisis is quite a normal
practice. Japan did the same thing in its prime development period, too.
It's not just Chinese corporations that are taking advantage of the economic crisis to help themselves.
The Chinese government also has come to the rescue of ailing countries, such as Jamaica and Pakistan, that it wants as allies, extending generous
loans. Even Chinese consumers are taking their money abroad. In a shopping trip last month organized by an online real estate brokerage, a group of 50
individual investors from China traveled to New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco to purchase homes at prices that have crashed since the subprime
crisis.
Foreign automakers may be next on China's acquisitions list.
www.washingtonpost.com
(visit the link for the full news article)
|
