Insight of the Chinese enterprises’ investment performance along ‘one belt one road’

Abstract

More and more Chinese enterprises have participated in the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) since its launch in 2013. However, have they all actually benefited? Which companies otherwise have benefited most from the plan? To answer these questions, this paper analyzes the impact of the BRI on Chinese enterprises. Among several findings, it reveals that the performance of companies remained low even though the initiative policy initially stimulated performance, the performance of enterprises depends on the geographical location of enterprises and that the returns of China’s outward foreign direct investment in various industries became more volatile with only the mining industry enjoying better returns. Thus, the paper shows that the BRI offers Chinese enterprises opportunities but also brings challenges for companies to optimize the allocation of their resources and improve the performance of their investments.

Keywords:

• Belt and road initiative
• investment performance evaluation
• Entropy
• DEA

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Beijing Social Science Fund (CN) (19GLC057); Research Cooperation Seed Fund of Beijing University of Technology (B38).

Notes on contributors

Rui Xue

Rui Xue is a lecturer at the College of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Technology, China. Her research interests include international trade, systems engineering, industrial ecological environment. Her work has been published in IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, Engineering Management Journal, Future Generation Computer Systems and other international journals.

HuiZheng Liu

Huizheng Liu is an associate professor at the College of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Technology, China. His research interests include Global Value Chain, International Trade and Environment, Trade and Finance. His work has been published in International Business and Finance, Environmental Science and Pollution Research, and Journal of International Trade and other international journals.

Claude Baron

Claude Baron is a full professor in computer sciences at the National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA) of the University of Toulouse (France). Her research interests include systems engineering, collaborative engineering, system design and modelling and project management. Her research has been published in Computers in Industry, Engineering Management Journal, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, Systems Engineering and other international journals.

XinYue Miao

Xinyue Miao is a student at the College of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Technology, China. Her research interests include finance and international trade. Her publications have appeared in Statistics and Management.

Muhammad Afaq Haider Jafri

Muhammad Afaq Haider is a Lecturer at the College of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Technology, China. His research interests include multi-dimensional topics of Finance, such as Foreign Portfolio Investment, Impact of aggregate demand drivers and Physical Infrastructure, energy consumption, economic growth and environmental pollution analysis. His research work has been published in journals like Environmental Science and Pollution Research, International Journal of Economics and Financial issues, International Journal of Economics and Finance, Journal for Studies in Management and Planning, Management and Business Research Quarterly and other International Journals