Qingdao city’s overseas investment has maintained a steady growth in the first half of 2014, according to the commerce bureau.

Large projects bolstered Qingdao’s outbound investments in the first half. The authority approved 16 large overseas investment cooperation projects, for which the Chinese side will invest $760 million, up 8.6 percent from a year ago. The projects helped boost the city’s overseas investments by 7 percentage points over the same period last year.

In the largest project approved in the first half, Evercontaining Electric Co will invest $99 million in the construction of a ferronickel industrial park in Indonesia.

In the January-June period, the eastern Chinese coastal city approved five overseas resource and energy projects, with a total of $420 million to be invested, up 195.8 percent year-on-year.

The city approved 30 new investment projects in 15 countries and regions of the “One Belt and One Road” (Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road) areas, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Mauritius and Angola. The Chinese side will invest $560 million in the projects in such industries as resource and energy, textiles and garments, and food processing, an increase of 133.3 percent over the same period last year. The amount accounted for 64.4 percent of Qingdao’s newly approved outbound investments in the first half.

In addition, four private enterprises were given the green light to make a total investment of $200 million in the real estate markets of the United States, Canada, Australia and Côte d'Ivoire, accounting for 23 percent of the city’s approved overseas investments in the first half.