How China’s diversifying overseas investment has swung open doors into the Global South
Chinese firms are seizing opportunities in less-developed countries to sell goods, avoid tariffs and insulate themselves against an economic slowdown back home
In hindsight, Hutchison Port Holdings made a prescient call 20 years ago when it invested in Mexico and Indonesia, according to managing director Eric Ip.
The international marine services provider’s move eventually proved beneficial in catering to a shift in China’s overseas investments away from North America since 2019, diversifying into regions such as Latin America and Southeast Asia, where seaports were needed to ship Chinese wares, Ip explained.
“Because of geopolitics, China has moved a lot of manufacturing enterprises to other countries, and the production lines to those countries,” he said.
Chinese companies are expanding in less-developed countries to sell goods in untapped markets as capacity balloons at home, and to take advantage of new infrastructure built or bankrolled by China over the past decade.
Their investments in relatively cheaper countries, meanwhile, offer a degree of insulation from China’s own economic-growth slowdown.
