Massive capital outflows from China in an effort to preserve capital is something that we've covered extensively in the past (here and here for example). Last month, China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) came out to do some damage control, and downplayed the extent of the activity. It also hinted that the government would "help" Chinese companies with overseas M&A in the future...

From Xinhua

The Ministry of Commerce (MOC) Tuesday denied that Chinese companies were on a global buying spree and said the speed of their overseas mergers and acquisitions (M&A) was "appropriate and normal." "It is an overstatement to say Chinese companies are 'buying out the world' as such a claim confuses finalized deals with those that are pending approval," said MOC spokesperson Shen Danyang at a news conference.

Overseas M&A deals by Chinese companies in the first quarter of the year stood at 16.56 billion U.S. dollars, a far cry from the 113 billion dollars cited by some reports, Shen said.

Instead of the rumored 100 billion dollars, Shen said that the worth of overseas M&A deals by Chinese companies last year was 40.1 billion dollars, or a mere 6.2 percent of the world's total M&A market value.

Although Chinese companies have increased transnational acquisition in recent years, their M&A and China's overseas investment were both in the early stages, he said.

According to Shen, Chinese overseas investment only accounts for 3.4 percent of the world's total, while the figure for the United States is 24.4 percent. China trails behind other developed economies such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Japan.

Overseas M&A by Chinese companies create win-win results, he said, citing the acquisition of AMC Entertainment by Dalian Wanda Group in 2012. The deal helped AMC turn losses into profits the same year, and get listed in the New York Stock Exchange the subsequent year, while some 1,100 new jobs were created in the United States.

Shen proposed more government support for Chinese companies to help them with overseas M&A as they still lack experience of dealing with cultural differences and policy hurdles.

As far as the size of the current 2016 deal flow, the MOC is using carefully worded language which excludes announced takeovers, which if included in the total puts the number at $92 billion through the end of March (excluding the Anbang/Starwood debacle) according to the Wall Street Journal.

Regarding outflows being "appropriate and normal", we will just leave this CLSA chart here, which shows ODI surpassing FDI on an annualized basis for the first time in 2016.

And finally, as we've said to many times in the past, it will only be a matter of time before Beijing clamps down on this method of circumventing capital controls in order to preserve capital ahead of the coming devaluation of the yuan. With the MOC public relations effort, and more specifically MOC spokesperson Shen's comments about "helping" companies in the future, we wonder if that time has now come.