BEIJING - The Ministry of Commerce (MOC) announced Tuesday that outbound investment from the world's second-largest economy is expected to total $150 billion in 2015.

The country's overseas investment is predicted to grow by an annual rate of 17 percent during the 2011-2015 period, according to the MOC.

Meanwhile, the MOC forecast that the contract value of overseas projects will hit $180 billion in 2015, while the business volume in overseas-contracted projects may hit $120 billion.

Amid accelerating Chinese investment, the ministry also predicted that the country would send 550,000 more Chinese staff to work on these projects in 2015, with the total number of Chinese staff working under these projects to hit one million by the end of 2015, the MOC forecast.

As of the end of 2010, Chinese-invested overseas projects were conducted in nearly 200 countries and regions, with outbound investment during the 2006-2010 period growing by 30 percent annually, according to the MOC.

The latest data from the MOC showed that the country's non-financial overseas direct investment totaled $23.16 billion in the first four months, up 72.8 percent from a year earlier.