Almost 90 percent of domestic companies involved in international trade plan to increase overseas investment, a survey reveals.

Of the 1,024 companies surveyed, about 88 percent said they want to boost investment overseas over the next two to five years, a sharp rise from a year earlier when 61 percent of the firms surveyed said they planned to expand investment.

Chinese companies to boost overseas investment

The China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development conducted the survey between December and March.

China's foreign exchange reserves, the world's largest, hit US$3.04 trillion at the end of March.

Li Xiaojing, head of the Bank of China's financial market department, said overseas investment will help diversify some of the reserves.

Asia, Europe and North America will be prime destinations for investment and Africa is gaining increasing importance as 22 percent of the companies surveyed had already invested there.

However, overseas investment remains small with about two-thirds of the companies surveyed investing less than US$5 million in 2010. Only 8 percent made investments of more than US$100 million.

In the next two to five years, about 30 percent of the companies surveyed expect to invest more than US$5 million.

The central bank in January allowed the yuan to be used in direct overseas investments. Asia and South America will be potential markets, at least in the initial period, Li told China Daily.

But Jia Huai, the survey's project director, said he believed many companies still lacked the technical knowledge to take advantage of the yuan policy but it was a step in the right direction.