This section examines the major shifts in China’s outbound energy finance over the past decade, with a particular focus on developments since 2022. Drawing on publicly available project information and systematically compiled datasets, the analysis highlights structural changes in the scale, composition and institutional drivers of official financing, with aggregate figures presented up to 2024. Together, these trends reveal how China’s role as an energy financier is evolving – from a gradual decline of traditional policy-bank lending to the rise of more commercial-oriented official providers – and what this means for investment patterns across EMDE.

China’s official outbound financing for energy is a visible part of the investment landscape in EMDE. Between 2015 and 2024, Chinese official institutions committed around USD 565 billion cumulatively to energy projects in EMDE abroad: USD 335 billion to fossil fuels and USD 230 billion to clean energy technologies and infrastructure. Annual commitments peaked around the mid-2010s, exceeding over USD 115 billion a year before moderating through the late 2010s and falling to around USD 28 billion per year from 2022 to 2024.

In relative terms, these flows accounted for about 7% of all energy investment in EMDE other than China between 2015 and 2024, and around 8% of clean energy spending during the same period. Their share has declined in recent years – averaging roughly 4% of clean energy investment from 2022 to 2024.

Most of this decline stems from the sharp contraction of state-owned policy bank lending, which previously drove the bulk of activity, reflecting a genuine reduction in large sovereign-linked lending rather than a shift into other official institutions. Other official actors – particularly state-owned commercial banks and state-owned enterprises – have maintained more stable levels of engagement, becoming proportionally more important as policy-bank volumes fell. Smaller but noticeable contributions from state-owned funds and the China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation (Sinosure), specialising in providing cover for Chinese exports and investments, also emerge in recent years.

These shifts reflect a financing system adapting to changing circumstances rather than a withdrawal from overseas energy engagement. Policy banks have placed a greater emphasis on project selectivity, risk management and alignment with host-country plans, especially after the COVID pandemic. At the same time, China’s broader official sector has expanded its international role in line with industrial competitiveness, global supply-chain integration and the overseas growth of Chinese developers and equipment suppliers. As a result, outbound finance increasingly flows through a more diverse mix of institutions and instruments, particularly in markets where host-country demand for energy infrastructure remains strong.

Even with the decline, China remains one of the largest single-country providers of official outbound finance for EMDE energy systems. When viewed against the much broader base of domestic public, international public and private capital captured in EMDE investment totals, the sustained contribution of a single official system underscores both its scale and ongoing relevance.

China’s traditional official financiers – state-owned policy banks and government agencies – once formed the backbone of the country’s outbound energy finance. However, these institutions have undergone a marked shift in both scale and composition over the past decade. Through the mid-2010s, the CDB and CEXIM accounted for the majority of annual commitments, supporting large-scale generation, transmission and fuel-supply projects across EMDE. Their financing was typically delivered through long-tenor loans to governments, state utilities or sovereign-linked developers, which aligned with the high demand for major infrastructure at the height of the early Belt and Road Initiative period.

Since then, the profile of their activity has changed significantly. Annual commitments from policy banks declined steadily after the 2016 peak and fell to their lowest levels in 2022 and 2023. At the same time, the sectoral focus of their financing has shifted, with recent operations concentrating on renewables, grid infrastructure and other clean-energy technologies, such as rail transport, while lending for fossil-fuel projects has largely tapered off. Policy-bank financing remains dominated by debt instruments, complemented by small volumes of grant-based support from government agencies and equity commitments to dedicated climate or infrastructure funds. Close to 80% of flows continue to be denominated in US dollars, with smaller shares in euros and Chinese yuan (CNY). This pattern reflects preferences for hard-currency stability and the established use of US dollars in cross-border project finance, even as CNY-denominated lending gradually gains visibility.

These adjustments reflect an evolution in both the supply of, and demand for, China’s official finance. On the supply side, recent policy guidance has placed greater emphasis on project selectivity, prudent risk management and support for green and low-carbon development, which naturally reduces the number of large sovereign loans while directing resources towards low-emissions and system-strengthening assets. On the demand side, many EMDE partners are increasingly seeking more flexible financing structures and stronger private-sector participation, reducing the reliance on large, fully sovereign-backed lending typical of the previous decade.

Looking ahead, recent announcements – including new commitments to expand South-South co-operation, stronger support for green infrastructure and the prospective development of new financing platforms such as the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) Development Bank (the to-be launched development finance consortium led by China and other members of SCO) –  suggest that China’s traditional financiers may continue to operate with a more targeted mandate, focusing on clean energy and grid projects while contributing to a wider ecosystem of outbound financing instruments and institutions.

China’s outbound energy engagement is increasingly being shaped by state-owned enterprises (SOEs), state-owned commercial banks and state-owned funds. These actors sit at the intersection of public ownership and commercial operation: they follow market-based models, often take equity positions and operate with stronger corporate autonomy than traditional policy banks, yet they remain aligned with national strategic and industrial objectives. This combination positions them to play an important role in EMDE energy systems, where project structures increasingly favour equity co-investment, risk sharing and long-term operational partnerships.

Within this group, SOEs have been the most consistently active providers, and their profile has shifted over time. In the early 2010s, investment was led by national oil companies, whose acquisitions centred on fossil resources and upstream assets. Since the mid-2010s, however, state-owned power and utility companies have become the main overseas investors, with capital flowing into power generation, including renewables, transmission and distribution. As a result, the technology mix of commercially-oriented official finance is more balanced than that of traditional lenders: still containing fossil-related investments but reflecting a meaningful expansion into clean energy as Chinese utilities and developers globalise. Their activity is predominantly in equity, including joint ventures, acquisitions, capital injections and in some cases, build-operate-transfer arrangements.

State-owned funds – such as the China Investment Corporation (CIC) and the Silk Road Fund (SRF) – add a distinct layer to this landscape. Unlike SOEs or commercial banks, these funds operate with explicit development and policy mandates, supporting cross-border infrastructure, connectivity and sustainable development while deploying capital through equity and fund-of-fund structures. While they are within the non-traditional category, given that their operational tools and risk profiles are equity-based and market-facing, their strategic role is much closer to that of a DFI. Their ability to provide long-tenor equity, anchor positions in development funds and provide early-stage capital for projects makes them particularly important for EMDE energy transitions, where private equity markets remain thin and many clean-energy projects cannot proceed on debt financing alone.

Taken together, these other official actors now form a critical complement to China’s traditional lending institutions. Their model responds directly to the needs of EMDE: equity to crowd in private investment, corporate partnerships that bring technology, and equipment and operational capacity. As many EMDE shift towards co-development and joint ownership of projects, these sources of official capital are becoming increasingly central to enabling large-scale clean energy investment where sovereign borrowing alone is insufficient.

A striking shift in China’s outbound energy engagement is that capital is no longer coming only as loans and equity. Alongside banks and SOEs, a growing share of support now is provided through the use of risk-mitigation tools, such as guarantees, insurance and credit cover, that make projects bankable in higher-risk markets. For EMDE, where balance-sheet constraints and political and regulatory uncertainty can be as binding as project-level challenges, these instruments can be just as important as the underlying debt or equity in getting energy projects built.

Within this landscape, Sinosure plays a central role. As China’s official export credit agency, it does not lend directly; it insures exporters, banks and investors against commercial and political risks linked to overseas contracts and projects. This distinguishes it from the CEXIM, which provides loans and buyer’s credits as a financial institution; such credits are granted as a loan extended to overseas buyers to finance the purchase of Chinese goods or services. CEXIM acts as a lender, while Sinosure acts as a credit insurer, and the two often operate in parallel on the same project but play fundamentally different roles.

Between 2019 and 2024, Sinosure’s total insured and guaranteed business rose from about USD 610 billion to more than USD 1 trillion per year – with medium- and long-term project insurance and overseas investment insurance providing cover for large infrastructure – including power generation, transmission and industrial energy projects. While only a portion of Sinosure’s portfolio relates to energy in EMDE, Sinosure is often the piece that allows Chinese and local financiers to proceed in markets that would otherwise be considered too risky.

Since 2022, Sinosure has also begun to track and disclose “green” activity explicitly, reflecting China’s dual-carbon goals and emerging green finance standards. Its reported support for green trade and projects increased from around USD 39 billion in 2022 to over USD 60 billion in 2024, with energy-related cases spanning utility-scale solar plants in the Middle East, wind and grid projects in Europe and Latin America and waste-to-energy and storage projects in Asia and Africa. These figures are larger than the outbound energy finance volumes tracked elsewhere in this analysis because they capture insured transaction values across the whole low-carbon supply chain – including equipment exports – rather than only capital committed to overseas energy assets.

The decline in the share of Sinosure-covered energy projects in 2020-21 and the gradual recovery from 2022 reflect both cyclical and structural factors. Pandemic-related disruptions slowed China’s overseas activity, while the demand for large fossil projects – historically those most reliant on Sinosure’s medium- to long-term cover – also fell. The post-2022 rebound aligns with Sinosure’s green finance framework, which has broadened the types of transactions it records and supports. Overall, the pattern points to an evolution from insuring large, high-risk fossil deals to a more diversified set of cleaner and supply chain-linked activities.

For EMDE energy transitions, the significance of Sinosure therefore lies less in the amount of money it puts “on the table” and more in its ability to de-risk and unlock other official and private finance. By standing behind banks, SOEs and host-country project companies, it helps shift projects from concept to financial close in markets where long tenors, regulatory uncertainty and currency volatility might otherwise stall investment.

China’s outbound financing landscape is becoming more diversified, shifting from a system anchored in sovereign lending to one where a broader mix of state-owned enterprises, commercial banks, funds and insurers play a growing role. This diversification means that a larger set of financial instruments – equity, guarantees and selective long-tenor debt – can now support EMDE energy systems. For recipient governments and developers, this translates into more options for structuring capital, particularly for projects that require a combination of corporate finance, engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contracting, and balance-sheet support rather than sovereign borrowing.

For clean energy deployment specifically, the evolving pattern suggests opportunities as well as challenges. The stronger presence of SOEs and state-owned funds brings substantial technical capabilities and appetite for more complex renewable and grid projects, while Sinosure’s increasingly targeted green underwriting helps de-risk project finance structures. At the same time, the decline in large-scale policy bank lending means fewer fully financed packages for emerging markets, placing greater importance on co-financing local-currency solutions and host-country readiness. EMDE that can offer clearer procurement pipelines, faster permitting and stronger off-taker frameworks that provide predictable revenues and credible counterparties are therefore better positioned to benefit from these new modes of engagement.

Looking ahead, China’s official financing system is likely to continue evolving towards cleaner, more competitive models that place greater emphasis on project viability, risk allocation and credit quality. This could support EMDE transitions in various ways, by expanding access to equity for early-stage clean energy infrastructure developers and local partners, mobilising more private capital into grids, storage and hybrid systems, or by channelling China’s manufacturing strength into cost-effective decarbonisation technologies. These opportunities also underscore the need for EMDE governments and international partners to build stronger enabling environments that can match this changing supply of finance with bankable, climate-aligned demand in the form of investable projects with clear revenue models and risk allocation. Recent project examples also illustrate how China’s evolving financing model is supporting EMDE energy transitions. Large-scale renewables are now being enabled through blended structures that combine SOE equity, long-tenor lending and export credit guarantees (Case 1), while distribution-sector acquisitions show how on balance-sheet investment, where the sponsor finances and owns the asset directly, can modernise critical grid infrastructure (Case 2). Industrial projects are increasingly financed through joint-venture models that share risk between Chinese SOEs and strong local partners (Case 3), and mining–power or captive-supply structures are emerging where reliability concerns limit conventional project finance (Case 4). Participation in multilateral private-equity platforms demonstrates how sovereign funds can channel capital into diversified regional pipelines rather than single assets (Case 5). Commercial upstream investments continue to rely on equity-based joint ventures where revenues are recovered through production sharing (Case 6). And risk-mitigated project finance supported by credit insurance is helping unlock first-of-a-kind waste-to-energy projects in challenging markets (Case 7). Together, these cases highlight the use of a more diverse set of financial instruments.