China posted a quarterly decline in the number of mergers and acquisitions as well as the value of the transactions in the first quarter of this year, according to the latest industry figures released yesterday.

In the first three months of this year, there was a drop of 22 percent from the fourth quarter of 2011 in the number of M&A transactions to 204 while the value of the deals tumbled 25 percent quarter on quarter to US$16.2 billion.

The domestic M&As took up the majority of the deals at 165 cases while 28 transactions were by Chinese companies buying firms overseas and 11 were of foreign companies purchasing Chinese enterprises, said the report by research institute Zero2IPO.

"The M&As conducted by Chinese companies overseas showed a strong growth in the first quarter," the report said.

Of the 28 overseas M&As by Chinese companies, the transaction value totaled US$11.6 billion in the first quarter, up 78 percent from the fourth quarter of last year, Zero2IPO data showed.

However, the report said the M&A transaction value by foreign firms in China in the first quarter plunged 76 percent from the three months before to US$630 million.

"As the growth of advanced economies has been slowing down since 2011, foreign companies have cut their M&A activities in China," the report said. "Some Chinese companies have become rich, and they are able to buy struggling foreign firms."

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