China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) is urging the international business community to be more “tolerant and rational” toward ambitious Chinese companies seeking to invest overseas. Shi Ziming of the Ministry’s Department of Outward Investment and Economic Cooperation, said many international markets still misunderstood the motives behind Chinese companies making investments overseas. Shi said there should be much more objective recognition and evaluation of any proposal being made by a Chinese company seeking to make an investment, given their strong track record in terms of local job creation and other economic contributions to the organizations and communities in which they invest. The latest Statistical Bulletin of China’s Outbound Foreign Direct Investment showed that Chinese non-financial ODI surged by 14% in 2011 from a year earlier to USD68.58 billion. The revised figures were an improvement on those announced earlier in the year by the Ministry, which had been set at USD60 billion. China’s total ODI gained 8.5% year-on-year to USD74.65 billion, which makes China the sixth-largest investing nation in value terms worldwide. About 36% of Chinese ODI last year was realized through mergers and acquisitions (M&As), particularly in mining, manufacturing, and electricity production and supply. ODI during the first seven months in the non-financial sector increased 52.8% from a year earlier, driven by growth of capital flow into ASEAN member countries and the United States, which represented 36% and 29.6% of the total respectively. Still, in 2011, China’s ODI by value accounted for just 4.4% of the global total, meaning “China still lags far behind developed economies in investing overseas”, said Shi. In 2011, Chinese companies that owned operations overseas submitted local taxes of more than USD22 billion, creating jobs for as many as 1.22 million people, including 888,000 local jobs, said the MOFCOM report.