Chinese investments across eastern Europe, north Africa and central Asia have far outpaced those from the US, as Beijing seeks ways to circumvent US trade sanctions, according to a new report.

Last year the 36 countries in which the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development operates — ranging from Poland to Mongolia in the east and from Morocco to Turkey in the south — received just under 39 per cent of their combined greenfield investments from China, up from 5.1 per cent in 2022 and only 0.6 per cent 20 years ago, the international lender reported on Wednesday.

“China is dwarfing FDI from Germany and the US,” Beata Javorcik, the EBRD’s chief economist, told the Financial Times. The US and Germany each accounted for just under 8 per cent of greenfield foreign direct investment in the regions covered by the international lender.