Is Chinese investment into the UK at record levels?

"there has been more inward investment from Chinese companies in the last 18 months, than in the last 30 years combined"

Reported on BBC Today Programme and from government press release in January

This morning the Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang, wrote a Times piece on China's economic development and the significance of its trading relationship with the UK. It hasn't been all praise for the UK lately, however: at the weekend the Chinese ambassador reportedly remarked that Britain now lags behind its German and French neighbours.

Amidst the conflicting perspectives, a familiar claim emerged from the BBC's morning coverage. UK Trade and Investment, which made the claim put out by the government earlier this year, didn't provide Full Fact with the details of where it was from, but offered itself as the source we could attribute the claim to.

We haven't been able to trace reliable figures to support the claim. Those that do exist indicate the UK is a significant target for Chinese companies compared to other countries, and that recent years have seen several large examples of Chinese investment. But on only one indicator - investment which involves significant equity gains - are there obvious numbers to support the claim.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) separately commented that there was 'virtually zero' investment prior to a few years ago, and so gave the view the claim is plausible.

£1.7 billion of Chinese investment to the UK in 2012 - but the figures are unreliable

This is the FCO's interpretation of figures it was given by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, statistics it describes as 'not perfect'. So we found in other ways: the figures were not obviously available on the Ministry's website, let alone details of how they were calculated. What's more, while it comments that these are significant rises since 2010, we're given little idea of the picture before then.

Nevertheless, on these numbers the UK is placed as high as 4th in the world for receipts of Chinese investment, behind Hong Kong, the USA, and Kazakhstan.

That throws up another problem with the data though: it doesn't necessarily reflect which countries end up with the money. The FCO comments of the money sent to Hong Kong: "nearly all of this money will go on to third markets but it's not clear where".

This happens across the world too. The British Virgin Islands come 5th in the world for receiving foreign direct investment (a particular type of investment which is more than just gaining equity in a foreign company).

But the UN and others admit that countries like this aren't primarily the final destination of investment. They go via financial centres for tax or administrative purposes.

So even with reliable figures from China, this wouldn't necessarily give the full picture either.

Barclays, BP and Weetabix the biggest recent cases

We can get some idea of how this investment might break down through figures put together by the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation. They compile a list of actual occasions in which a Chinese investor has sent funds to the UK.

Among the larger examples, the China Development Bank's 2007 purchase of 3% equity in Barclays, the SAFE investment company's 2008 investment into BP and most famously the 2012 takeover by Bright Foods of Weetabix. These combined sum to some £4 billion worth of investment in UK companies.

This list won't necessarily be exhaustive, but it does put some solid examples to the abstract numbers.

Direct investment at historically high levels

Alternative figures put together by the Office for National Statistics give us a picture of foreign direct investment over time. This only counts cases where the investor gains an 'effective voice' in the target: defined as holding 10% equity. That's why its figure for 2012: £193 million of investment in 2012, is so much lower than the others on offer.

There are figures on this measure going back to 2003, and here they do show record levels for the most recent year compared to every previous on record combined.

While this does give some credence to the claim, it still isn't the data we were pointed to. Until we know more about the Chinese figures, in particular having a timeseries for recent years, we can't say how accurate the central claim is, or whether there's more context needed.