China’s Overseas Clean Tech Manufacturing Investments Surged 80% Since 2022: Report

The research says this kind of investment surpassed the investments by the US over four years in the Marshall Plan

Chinese firms have pledged at least $227 billion across green manufacturing projects, with 80% of the investments coming in after 2022. A new report titled “China’s Green Leap Outward: The rapid scale-up of overseas Chinese clean-tech manufacturing investments” by Net Zero Industrial Policy said that since 2021, the country has invested in battery materials, full battery plants, EVs, charging equipment, wind, and early-stage green hydrogen.

According to the report, there’s no comparable dataset to this new pressure, which identified a significant surge in this type of outbound investment, compared to pre-Covid levels of low single-digit billions most years. The data suggested that China’s green industrial foreign direct investment (FDI) is on a similar scale to the Marshall Plan.  The Marshall Plan involved the US providing $13 billion in aid to Western and Southern European countries to rebuild their economies after World War II, when the US dominated manufacturing of key industries.

Regional Re-balancing in Investments

The report said ASEAN still hosts major projects, but 2024 saw the surge of investments over 20% in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). For the first time in 2024, projects were also recorded in Central Asia and Caucasus. The data showed that after 2022, 387 projects were started and China committed over $210 billion since then. 

The geographic distribution of investments suggested that the motivation to invest in these countries was that it gave them an access to host countries market, they get access to raw material inputs as the countries with critical minerals, abundant renewables, or large consumer markets can anchor themselves in China-centric supply chains, and give them access to third country markets, said the report. 

Investments Likely to Plateau in 2025

The report said the project counts in 2025 are likely to plateau below the 2024 record as the firms grapple with a pipeline of megaprojects and hedge against geopolitical risk. This shift is evident in the growing adoption of light-asset strategies, such as technology licensing, contract manufacturing, and OEM deals, by EV makers and battery and solar firms, the report stated. This approach will enable China to maintain market access without incurring significant fixed-asset investments and the commercial reach of China’s technology is set to expand, it concluded. 

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