Private companies accounted for nearly half of China's outbound investment in 2011, a senior trade official said on Thursday, while expecting the proportion to continue expanding as the government supports investors seeking overseas projects.

In 2011, China's outbound direct investment in the non-financial sector reached $68.58 billion, among which around 45 percent was from non-State-owned enterprises, said Shi Ziming, commercial counselor at the Department of Outward Investment and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce.

"Private enterprises will definitely play a more and more important role in the process of the nation's outbound direct investment activities. "They will probably surpass State-owned enterprises as the major force of China's investment wave," Shi said.

According to the top 100 non-financial Chinese companies ranked by ODI in 2011, Lenovo Group Ltd, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, and Geely Holdings Group are the three largest private investors overseas, ranking 25th, 27th and 31st.

These major private investors are also among the leaders in the latest ranking of the top 500 Chinese private companies by revenue, which was released on Thursday by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce.

Jiangsu Shagang Group, China's largest private steelmaker, secured the top spot with annual revenue of 207.5 billion yuan ($32.7 billion) in 2011. It ranked fourth among overseas private investors.

In another league table complied by the Statistical Society for Foreign Economic Relations and Trade of China, which ranked China's top 500 private foreign traders, Huawei came top with an export-import volume of 11.7 billion yuan.

According to the Ministry of Commerce, by the end of 2011, a total of 18,000 Chinese companies had made investments abroad, among them, 78 percent had made a profit or broke. To help Chinese enterprises expand their horizons globally, the central government has taken a series of steps to encourage investors' participation in international projects.

The National Development and Reform Commission said this month applications will no longer need to be filed for overseas resource development projects with an investment worth less than $30 million.

In February, the nation's top economic planning agency gave approval powers for resource projects with an investment of up to $300 million, and non-resource projects with an investment of up to $100 million.

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