Overseas gifts are important

Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan residents, as well as overseas Chinese, contributed 81.2 percent of donations that came from outside the Chinese mainland, academic reports said on Tuesday.

A woman with a cataract receives a checkup in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu province on Sept 9. The Nanjing Charity Federation is cooperating with a local ophthalmology hospital to offer free surgeries to poor senior patients. [Wang Chengbing / For China Daily]

China received 4.51 billion yuan ($674.9 million) worth of donations from countries and regions outside the mainland last year, accounting for 14.1 percent of the total collected from home and abroad.

Of this, 3.66 billion yuan came from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan as well as from Chinese people overseas.

The result was released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in its annual report on China's philanthropy development.

However, experts said the number might be overvalued.

"Since China does not have a centralized institution for charitable statistics, plus some foreign funds come to the country via various channels besides charity, it is hard to determine the exact figure," said Huang Haoming, vice-chairman of the China Association for NGO Cooperation.

Compared to domestic donations, more overseas donations go to improve education and healthcare.

Guangdong province received more donations than other regions of the country, because many overseas Chinese come from the province. It was followed by Beijing and Sichuan province.