The Impact of Digital Economy Development in Belt and Road Countries on China’s Outward Foreign Direct Investment

This paper selects 43 countries along the Belt and Road from 2003 to 2022 as the research sample, incorporates the level of digital economy development into an investment gravity model, and empirically examines its impact on China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI). The results show that, first, the level of digital economy development in host countries significantly promotes the growth of China’s OFDI, indicating that the digital economy has become an important locational factor affecti