BEIJING - The overseas assets of China's centrally administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have posted an annual growth rate of 16.4 percent since 2011, when they adopted a strategy of going global, a senior official said on Friday.

These overseas assets have risen from 2.7 trillion yuan ($441.87 billion) at the start of 2011 to 4.9 trillion yuan currently, Zhang Yi, chairman of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, the SOEs regulator, said before the close of a two-day conference.

The SOEs' operating revenue has been increasing at 12.2 percent annually in the period to hit 4.6 trillion yuan, said Zhang.

He encouraged them to play an active role in the China-proposed Belt and Road initiative, a plan to enhance international connections and boost trade by building more infrastructure.

By the end of last year, 107 central SOEs had set up a total of 8,515 branches in 150 countries and regions.

China has 113 centrally administered SOEs. Their investments abroad account for 70 percent of the country's total outbound direct investment.