Belt & Road boosts foreign investment

Domestic firms' M&A activity soars in areas involved with global initiative

The Belt and Road Initiative represented a big boon for Chinese investors amid an overall slump in outbound Chinese merger and acquisition activity in 2017, according to a report released by Morning Whistle Group, a Shanghai-based trade group specializing in cross-border M&A.

Chinese firms' M&A activity soared 47.4 percent in terms of transaction volume in countries and regions involved in the initiative, which contrasted with an overall 13.5 percent slide for Chinese investment in deals globally in 2017, the report showed.