China's overseas investment will rise by roughly 10 percent from the previous year to 120 billion yuan (19.67 billion U.S. dollars), a trade official said on Wednesday.

The 10 percent growth rate will remain for the next five years, Chinese Assistant Trade Minister Zhang Xiangchen said.

It is just a matter of time before China's outbound investment will exceed foreign investment into the country, he said.

In the first nine months, China's investment in other nations and regions hit 74.96 billion U.S. dollars, up 21.6 percent year on year, while the country actually used 87.36 billion U.S. dollars of overseas investment, down 1.4 percent year on year.

China's equipment manufacturers have found huge markets overseas, involving sectors such as shipping, high-speed railway, electricity and telecommunication, Zhang said.

The country's outbound investment was 2.7 billion U.S. dollars in 2002, but rose to 107.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2013, ranking the third in the world after the United States and Japan, according to the Ministry of Commerce.