Chinese investment in the EU declined by 44 percent in 2015

This came after a 116. 3 percent increase in year-over-year Chinese
FDI in the EU in 2014 (MOFCOMet al. 2015: 29; 2016: 27).
This could be the result of the slowrecovery in the EU. It
might also mean that Chinese companies are choosing to
invest in the Euthrough Hong Kong or offshore centers like
the Cayman Islands, both of which are not shown by Chi –
na’ s national FDI statistics. It is striking that Hong Kong’ s
share of Chinese FDI outflows rose another 21. 1 percent
year-over-year in 2015, while Cayman Islands’ FDI out-
flows j umped 59 percent in the same period
(MOFCOMet al. 2016: 43, 46).

Despite what may be distorted statis-
tics, as explained in more detail in the Appendix, China’ s
national statistics showa clear increase in Chinese FDI out-
flows to developed countries between 2004 and 2015. While
Australia and the United States were the only two developed
countries in the top ten recipients of Chinese investment in
2004, developed countries made up five of the Chinese top
ten FDI targets in 2015 (Table 4). Germany is in 22nd place,
having received j ust US $409. 6 million in Chinese invest-
ment in 2015. Ayear earlier, it had received US $1. 4 bil –
lion fromChina, putting it in ninth place (MOFCOMet al.
2015: 14).

Nevertheless, in 2015, Germany remained the
third-largest recipient of Chinese FDI in the EU after the
Netherlands and the United Kingdom.