China's outbound direct investment in overseas manufacturing sectors surged dramatically in January, highlighting the shift of Chinese capital into technology-intensive projects from traditional energy- and resource-focused ones, official data showed on Wednesday.

China's ODI in the manufacturing sector rose by 87.8 percent in January on a year-on-year basis to 10.6 billion yuan ($1.62 billion), according to the Ministry of Commerce.

A major chunk of the capital flowed into the telecommunications, electronic equipment, pharmaceutical and automobile manufacturing sectors, Shen Danyang, the ministry's spokesman, told a news conference in Beijing.