The Ministry of Commerce yesterday dismissed claims that Chinese companies are on a global buying spree, saying the speed of their overseas mergers and acquisitions 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,” ministry spokesman Shen Danyang told a news conference.

The value of cross-border M&As in the first quarter rose 14 percent year on year to US$324 billion, while the number of deals fell 10 percent to 1,202, according to the quarterly cross-border M&A index released yesterday by international law firm Baker & McKenzie.

The decline was due to the economic slowdown in China, the potential exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union, volatile equities markets and the fall in commodities prices, it said.

Shen said overseas M&A deals by Chinese companies in the first quarter of this year totaled US$16.56 billion, which was far below the US$113 billion cited in some media reports.

Bloomberg News said in a report on March 31 that Chinese firms had announced US$113 billion in overseas deals since the start of the year.

Shen also said the “rumored” US$100 billion worth of overseas M&A deals by Chinese companies last year was false, saying that the total was only US$40.1 billion, or 6.2 percent of the global total. He did not give the source of the alleged “rumor.”

Meanwhile, the Baker & McKenzie report claimed that the outbound deals from China covered a number of sectors including chemicals, business services and consumer goods, revealing a desire to access advanced manufacturing techniques and technological know-how to build global brands.

The report said the biggest single deal in the first quarter was the takeover of Swiss agrochemical company Syngenta by state-owned ChemChina for US$45.8 billion.

Shen said that although Chinese companies have increased transnational acquisition in recent years, their M&A and China’s overseas investments were “in the early stages.”

Chinese overseas investment accounts for just 3.4 percent of the world’s total, compared with 24.4 percent for the United States, he said. China also trails behind other developed economies, including the UK, Germany, France and Japan.

“We are seeing a shift in Chinese investment from emerging markets to developed economies, and from energy and natural resources to technology and financial services, as Chinese companies target brands, talent and other assets that help increase their competitiveness at home and abroad,” said Zhang Danian, chief representative of Baker & McKenzie’s Shanghai office. “We expect this trend to continue for the rest of 2016, as China’s economy stabilizes and the country transforms from a low-end manufacturing-led economy to one that focuses on consumption and services.”

Shen said the government should provide more support for firms involved in overseas M&As as they lack experience in dealing with cultural differences and policy hurdles.