MERGERS and acquisitions by Chinese companies in the mining industry remain small and have been overstated globally, according to a latest PricewaterhouseCoopers report.

But China, already an extremely active investor in global mining projects, will aggressively seek outbound M&As from this year in an attempt to create national diversified mining giants to rival BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto.

"Chinese entities have been acquisitive in the mining sector, but the overwhelming majority of equity acquisitions has involved small projects within China and surrounding regions," Tim Goldsmith, PwC's global mining leader, said in the report.

"M&As by Chinese entities are not, as has been suggested, contributing to China amassing de facto control of the world's resources," he said.

PwC disclosed that Chinese buyers were involved in only 6 percent of all global mining acquisitions in 2010 while North American buyers took a 52-percent share and Australian buyers 16 percent.

PwC said it tracked 161 acquisitions worth nearly US$12 billion by Chinese buyers in 2010. That brought the total to 400 M&A deals worth US$48 billion in 2000-2010, less than the acquisitions done by Rio Tinto and Xstrata by value in the period.

China is encouraging a "go-out" strategy for its companies to secure supplies of commodities such as iron ore.

Xiong Weiping, president of diversified mining firm Chinalco, said this week the firm has been cleared by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission to invest in all kinds of mineral resources except oil and gas.