An employee counts yuan banknotes at a bank in Huaibei, Anhui province June 22, 2010.[Photo/Agencies]

BEIJING - Chinese companies continued to invest big in the overseas market in the first quarter (Q1) of the year, new official data shows.

China's non-financial outbound direct investment (ODI) jumped 55.4 percent from a year ago to 261.74 billion yuan ($40.34 billion) in Q1, the Ministry of Commerce said Thursday.

Hong Kong region attracted the most investment from the Chinese mainland, accounting for 51.6 percent of the total.?Investment from the Chinese mainland?to the United States more than doubled to $5.24 billion. ASEAN received a total of $2.29 billion of investment, up 44 percent year on year.

Some $5.4 billion was invested in manufacturing in Q1, up 125.9 percent, nearly half of that channeled to equipment manufacturing.

Chinese firms spent $16.56 billion on overseas acquisitions, covering 15 industries and 36 countries and regions.

The ministry said the Belt and Road initiative was a major push to business cooperation between Chinese and foreign firms. ODI to countries involved in the initiative was $3.59 billion, an increase of 40.2 percent year on year.

ODI in March rose 21.5 percent year on year to 66.4 billion yuan.