Chinese companies' merger and acquisition (M&A) activities in the Belt and Road region have grown rapidly in the past three years, a report showed.

China's M&A transaction volume in the region grew from 2.264 billion U.S. dollars in 2014 to 9.755 billion U.S dollars in 2016, overtaking the United States and Japan to be the top acquiree in 2016, according to a report released by Thomson Reuters, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a research institution under Tsinghua University.

Globally speaking, the finance, energy and telecom service sectors are the top three sectors attracting M&A activities in the B&R region.

The energy, power and raw material sectors are major industries attracting China's M&A investment, while Kazakhstan, Russia, Israel, Singapore and Egypt are the top five destinations in terms of transaction volume.

China's M&A transaction volume in the Silk Road Economic Belt outweighs that in the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, while the latter has more M&A cases, the report showed.