Development Of China's Sovereign Wealth Funds

Abstract

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have over $12.05 trillion in assets under management as of January 2024. Most of these 176 funds are sponsored by non-Western countries and their growth has made SWFs important international investors, particularly in private equity funding. We first define SWFs, then discuss their evolution into today’s categories of stabilization, savings, and development/strategic funds. As the largest holder of foreign exchange reserves in the world, Mainland China established its first Sovereign Wealth Fund in 2007, which attracted considerable international attention immediately. On one hand, the scale of sovereign wealth funds had reached US 200 million $, which is the sixth highest in the world; on the other hand, China’s sovereign wealth funds became active funds for investment under the global financial crisis occurred in 2008 when many countries were facing fund shortage. From the viewpoint of Independence Theory, this study investigated the positive political and economic benefits of China’s sovereign wealth funds, as well as its problems, and proposed suggestions for its future development.