China’s Official Energy Finance in Emerging and Developing Economies

Global energy investment exceeded USD 3.3 trillion in 2025, but capital flows remain uneven. Emerging market and developing economies (EMDE) outside China attracted just 27% of total energy investment and 18% of clean energy spending, despite accounting for nearly two-thirds of the global population and the bulk of future demand. Addressing this imbalance requires mobilising more capital from diverse sources into EMDE energy systems.

China continues to play a central role in global energy investment flows because of its large domestic investments and its large external capital spending on energy. Since 2015, its official-sector institutions have committed on average over USD 55 billion annually to energy-related projects in EMDE – equivalent to around 8% of all tracked clean energy investment directed to these economies. Historically, this financing was driven by state-owned policy banks and sovereign actors providing debt and, in some cases, grants. In recent years, however, the composition has shifted. While financing commitments are slowly rising again, following a drop during the COVID pandemic, policy-bank lending has significantly contracted and focused almost entirely on clean technologies. Meanwhile, state-owned enterprises, state-owned commercial banks and export credit agencies have taken on a larger role, increasingly through equity investments or guarantees. This shift suggests a move towards a more competitive – yet still state-directed – model of international energy engagement.

These changes reflect a financing system adapting to new domestic and global circumstances rather than a withdrawal from China’s overseas energy activity. For clean energy deployment in particular, the evolving pattern presents both opportunities – including expanded equity participation and greater risk-sharing – and challenges linked to uneven availability of concessional or long-tenor finance.

This report maps and analyses these changes through an energy sector-level dataset covering 2015 to 2024. It explores how China’s evolving financing model is reshaping instruments, institutions and regional allocation patterns, and also considers the strategic and practical implications for EMDE energy transitions.

The analysis is complemented by case studies covering a range of technologies and financial structures – from large-scale renewables and electricity distribution to green industrial projects, waste-to-energy and upstream developments – which show how China’s official actors operate in practice across contrasting markets.