Investments in Europe could come to total more than 20 percent of China's sovereign wealth fund’s diversified equities, according to Jin Liqun, chairman of the Board of Supervisors at the fund.
Jin told CNBC that recent months had shown that the continent was home to a number of strong, well-balanced companies that could benefit from investment from the fund, known as CIC.
“We need to diversify, and I do believe European countries are also ready for us to think about. For instance, quite a number of European companies are actually well established, well-managed companies. Now they need capital injection, they need a vote of confidence,” he said.
Jin said he was not interested in “bailing out” any countries, but that Europe as a whole is a good investment prospect.
“When you look at the portfolio of public market investment, we can say there are some very good assets. But we won't do something too risky. I do believe (the) euro zone, Europe as a whole is a developed region and they have a lot of things for us to work together. Some people are very pessimistic about (the) Euro (but) I don't think that way,” he said.
He added that with the developed social superstructure in the region, there is no reason to be pessimistic about Europe.
He said he would be interested in infrastructure projects within Europe.
“Euro zone members need to upgrade their infrastructure, power supply, power transmission and distribution, water supply and water treatment, real estate.
Also, we invest in property market stocks and bonds,” he said.
He added that investments could also go through fund managers because “if we inject capital into the public market, that's also a vote of confidence”.
The full interview will be broadcast on ‘Managing Asia’ on Friday 20th April at 17:30pm Singapore/HK and on 22nd April at 13:00 CET.