1st LD-Writethru: China financial institutions see overseas investment outflow in Q1

Overseas direct investment into China's financial institutions, including banks, insurers and securities firms, saw a net outflow of 1.29 billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter of 2017, the nation's foreign exchange regulator revealed Tuesday.

This is an increase from a net outflow of 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in the fourth quarter of 2016, equivalent to roughly half of the net outflow of overseas investment into the industry registered for the whole of 2016, according to data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE).

In the first three months, the country's financial institutions made net outbound investment of 1.98 billion U.S. dollars in overseas companies, lower than the quarterly average level recorded in 2016, according to the SAFE.

Last year, China's financial institutions' net outbound investment totaled 9.65 billion U.S. dollars in overseas companies, official data showed.

SAFE has released data on a quarterly basis since 2012, as part of the regulator's efforts to increase the transparency of foreign exchange statistics.

Overseas investment to financial organs makes up only a small portion of overall foreign direct investment into China.

Earlier official data showed foreign direct investment to the Chinese mainland, excluding the financial institutions, maintained steady growth last year on the back of strong investment in the service industry.

Foreign direct investment rose 4.1 percent year on year to reach 813 billion yuan (around 118 billion U.S. dollars) in 2016. Endi