China’s outbound direct investment (ODI) in non-financial areas increased 14.3 percent year-on-year to US$7.91 billion in October, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said.

In the first 10 months of 2015, Chinese investments overseas amounted to US$95.21 billion, up by 16.3 percent from the prior-year period, the Ministry’s spokesperson Shen Danyang announced in a press conference on Tuesday.

The Ministry noted that Chinese investments in the manufacturing sector abroad remained robust in the first 10 months of 2015.

The ODI in the manufacturing sector totalled US$9.94 billion in the January-October period, surging by 82.8 percent from a year earlier. The main investments were made in the manufacturing of vehicles and telecommunications equipment, the ministry added.

Chinese think tank Center for China and Globalization said China would surpass the United States to become the world’s largest source for foreign direct investment (FDI) by 2022, newspaper China Daily reported earlier this month.