BEIJING - Chinese companies' merger and acquisition (M&A) activities in the Belt and Road region have grown rapidly in the past three years, a report showed.

China's M&A transaction volume in the region grew from $2.264 billion in 2014 to $9.755 billion in 2016, overtaking the United States and Japan to be the top acquiree in 2016, according to a report released by Thomson Reuters, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a research institution under Tsinghua University.

Globally speaking, the finance, energy and telecom service sectors are the top three sectors attracting M&A activities in the B&R region.

The energy, power and raw material sectors are major industries attracting China's M&A investment, while Kazakhstan, Russia, Israel, Singapore and Egypt are the top five destinations in terms of transaction volume.

China's M&A transaction volume in the Silk Road Economic Belt outweighs that in the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, while the latter has more M&A cases, the report showed.