Of the 1,024 companies surveyed, about 88 percent said they want to boost investment overseas over the next two to five years, a sharp rise from a year earlier when 61 percent of the firms surveyed said they planned to expand investment.

The country's top think tank said on Tuesday that donations hit 70 billion yuan ($10.7 billion) last year, more than double the year before.

China's business-to-business (B2B) trade revenue rose to 2.9 billion yuan ($444 million) in the first quarter. That's 7.7 percent more than the previous quarter's 2.7 billion in revenue and up 40.9 percent from one year earlier.

Despite a sharp reduction in the number of trade remedies against Chinese goods and services launched by trading partners last year, Chinese companies still face trade and investment barriers, the Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday.

Property prices in key cities grew slower in March, and some actually declined, as the government's measures to curb rampant real estate speculation and tightened monetary policies began to bite.