China now holds the place as the largest outbound mergers and acquisitions, overtaking the place the US previously held. South China Morning Post reported that the change underscores a global buying spree driven by China's economic growth over the last three decades as well as its programme encouraging companies to buy overseas assets and technology.

Dealogic, a global provider of data and analytics, said that in the first nine months of the year the total value of mergers and acquisitions by Chinese companies jumped 68% year on year to 173.9 billion US dollars. Since 2008, the US has been the top cross-border acquirer in the first nine-month period.

Dealogic shows that a total of 601 announced deals marked the most active first nine month period on record for Chinese acquirers. Last year, the same period only had 441 deals. Deal volume was led by ChemChina's 46.7 billion US dollars pending acquisition of Syngenta, announced in February, the largest China outbound M&A deal ever made.

However, the report says not all Chinese deals closed as national security interests trumped economic gains. 42 Chinese outbound acquisitions worth a total of 35.8 billion US dollars were withdrawn in the first nine months, already the highest annual level on record.