GOLDMAN Sachs is partnering with sovereign fund China Investment Corp. (CIC) to jointly launch an up-to-US$5-billion fund to invest in U.S. manufacturers, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Goldman Sachs will run a newly established private equity fund and invest some money alongside CIC, said the sources who declined to be named. The details of the fund is expected to be announced tomorrow as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to China, said the sources.

The Goldman-CIC fund will aim to bolster its returns by helping the companies it invests in to expand their market in China, they said.

Goldman Sachs may only be able to contribute 3 percent of the fund because of U.S. rules regarding banks’ private equity investments. The firms will likely bring in other third-party investors, one of the sources said. The exact amount contributed to the new fund by each side is still being finalized, according to the sources.

Goldman’s chief executive Lloyd Blankfein will visit China as part of a business delegation, which is being led by U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, this week at the same time as Trump.

China is an important market for Goldman, which ranked as the top M&A dealmaker in Asia-Pacific excluding Japan in the first nine months of the year, according to Thomson Reuters data.

CIC, one of the biggest sovereign funds globally, has made a series of large investments this year including the US$13.7 billion acquisition of warehouse firm Logicor, Europe’s biggest-ever private equity real estate deal.(SD-Agencies)