A staff member works at a production line of SAIC Volkswagen in east China's Shanghai, Oct. 29, 2019. (Xinhua/Ding Ting)

Companies from Europe account for nearly half of the top 100 overseas investors in China, according to a report released by the Hurun Research Institute on Wednesday, which highlights the close bilateral relationship between China and Europe.

The report, called the Hurun Largest Foreign & HK/Macao/Taiwan Companies in China 2022, includes a list of the top 100 firms from these areas that made the greatest contribution to the economy, based on their sales and number of employees in the Chinese mainland.

This is the second year the list has been produced.

Companies on the list recorded combined sales of $1 trillion in the Chinese mainland last year, equivalent to 7 percent of the country's GDP.

The companies employed just under 3 million people in China, at an average of 30,000 employees per company. In terms of business model, 59 percent are direct-to-consumer, while 41percent are business-to-business firms. Overall, 81percent sold physical products and 19 percent sold software or services.

The auto, consumer goods, healthcare and consumer electronics sectors led the list, accounting for nearly half of the top 100 firms. The average age of the 100 companies is 92, with an average 55-year history in China.

The top 10 on the list are Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, Volkswagen, Apple, General Motors, Charoen Pokphand, HSBC, Robert Bosch, Toyota Motor, Samsung Electronics and BMW.

By country, the largest number of companies is from the US, followed by Japan, the UK, Germany and France, with the top five countries accounting for more than 80 percent of the Top 100. By continent, Europe contributed nearly half of the Top 100, Hurun Report Chairman and Chief Researcher Rupert Hoogewerf said.

Data from the Ministry of Commerce showed that in the first 10 months of 2022, actualized foreign direct investment totaled $168.34 billion, an increase of 17.4 percent year-on-year, of which FDI from Germany rose by 95.8 percent.

On November 22, the Surface Treatment global business unit of BASF's Coatings division, operating under the Chemetallbrand, celebrated the inauguration of its state-of-the-art surface treatment production site in Pinghucity, East China's Zhejiang Province.

Spanning 60,000 square meters, the Pinghu site is BASF's first production site located in the Dushan Port Economic Development Zone, and now its largest surface treatment site globally.

Global Times