China’s Buying The World!

What’s an ambitious, developing country to do? Put the dollars to work.

"We should hasten the implementation of our ‘going out’ strategy and combine the utilisation of foreign exchange reserves with the ‘going out’ of our enterprises,” Wen Jiabao, the country’s premier told Chinese diplomats at the end of July.

"Going out" is China’s slogan for acquiring abroad through its state owned corporations like PetroChina and Chinalco.

Last year China spent $41 billion in acquisitions, up from $143 million in 2002, according to the FT. Since December China has spent $13 billion on acquistions says Bloomberg. It plans on spending much more than that in the coming months. At the end of August, PetroChina announced it was looking for more acquisitions, wanting to cash in on “favorable opportunities.” CNOOC also announced the same at the end of the month.

This is a change of pace for the country. It was giving loans in exchange for oil last year. China made over $45 billion in loans to Russia, Brazil, Venezuela and Kazakhstan. In return it got long-term oil contracts.

The country abandoned that strategy when it realized it had a once in a lifetime opportunity to snap up deal after deal around the world. China saved up ahead of this downturn. Now it’s running through the world cashing in on steep discounts left and right.