BEIJING: China’s US$410-billion sovereign wealth fund received a US$30 billion injection from the government last year, boosting its investment war chest for European assets, state media said yesterday.
China Investment Corporation (CIC) was set up in 2007 to invest some of the country’s world-beating foreign exchange reserves overseas.
The fund received the additional capital from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (Safe) late last year, the China Daily quoted the fund’s deputy general manager, Wang Jianxi, as saying.
The money would be used to buy assets in debt-stricken European countries, Wang said. CIC “in the short term would devote itself to investing in the region in an active way,” he said.
State media said last month that CIC had also received US$50 billion from the central bank after the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday in January. The combined capital injections would increase the value of CIC’s assets to US$490 billion, based on the latest available figures.
AFP calls to the wealth fund went unanswered and a spokesman for Safe would not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The capital injection comes as China’s companies and funds increase investment overseas, especially in debt-laden European economies and resource-rich Latin America, due to growing competition at home.
In January CIC bought 8.68 per cent of British utility company Thames Water – the largest water and sewage service provider in the country – through a wholly-owned subsidiary. — AFP