A Study On The Regional Differences And Influencing Factors Of China’s Outward Foreign Direct Investment

With the upgrading of China’s economic development and overall national strength,foreign direct investment of China has entered a stage of rapid development. From year2003to2011,China’s foreign direct investment is developing rapidly.The flow has evolved from the initial$2.85billion to$74.65billion,with an average annual growth rate of50.4%,not only faster than the world,developed and developing countries,even more than the newly industrialized countries. As of the end of2011, the stock of OFDI in China has reached$424.78billion,ranking13th in the world. From a total point of view,it is clear that China has become a big country of the outward foreign direct investment.However,China is also a vast country,the development of regional economy is imbalance and regional economy,social,location and technical condition are different,so the outward foreign direct investment also shows significant difference.As of2011,there are considerable differences in the outward foreign direct investment between China’s three major economic regions, investment in the eastern region is the most active, followed by the central and western region.Ranking of the top10places for foreign direct investment,except for Hubei and Hunan is located in the middle, the remaining8provinces belong to the eastern region.Therefore,in order to reduce regional disparities,promote balanced development of foreign direct investment in China,it is necessary for us to study the difference of China’s outward foreign direct investment level and its influencing factors.In this paper,from the the perspective of the home country of the foreign direct investment,with reference to the research results of scholars at home and abroad,in the in-depth analysis of the differences among China’s eastern region,middle region and western region, selecting30provinces and cities as the research object and17variables,using principal component analysis to find the main factors affecting the level of foreign direct investment in the various regions.According to the factor scores we find that the main factors influencing the regions’level of the foreign direct investment are potential factor, industrial structure factor and power factor. Finally, based on the conclusion of the analysis,in order to achieve to reduce regional disparities, promote balanced regional economic development goals,we put forward the regional policy recommendations.