The total non-financial assets of overseas Chinese companies have exceeded 200 billion U.S. dollars, said a senior official on Tuesday.

Vice Minister of Commerce Wei Jianguo said at a forum in Beijing that China had already more than 10,000 companies abroad and their annual sales totaled 150 billion U.S. dollars last year.

These companies make profits of 17.7 billion U.S. dollars every year and pay 3.5 billion U.S. dollars in taxes to their host countries, said Wei.

Statistics with the Ministry of Commerce show that China's direct overseas investment had been rising at 66 percent annually between 2001 and 2005.

The accumulated overseas investment had reached 71.22 billion U.S. dollars by the end of last September, according to the Ministry.

"China has become an important labor exporter in the construction, textile and sailing sectors," said Wei.

But he also pointed out that the scale of overseas investment remains small for Chinese companies, which currently only account for 0.5 percent of the global direct overseas investment.

Engineering contracts won by Chinese firms only account for 2.1 percent of the total value of such contracts. Chinese laborers working abroad make up only 1.5 percent of the world total.

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