China Inc on buying spree of foreign firms

Hong Kong

CHINA Inc can't buy foreign companies fast enough, and the yuan's trajectory helps explain why.

The Chinese currency will weaken 3.3 per cent versus the dollar by year-end, a Bloomberg survey of strategists found, with the world's largest foreign-exchange trader Citigroup Inc forecasting a 7 per cent slide through 2017. The projections show the potential cost of delaying instead of deal-making, and China's firms are getting the message. The value of their offshore acquisitions reached US$97.4 billion this year, already 80 per cent of 2015's record, data compiled by Bloomberg shows.