CDH Investments is aiming to raise nearly US$1 billion in dollar and yuan funds through its venture and growth capital arm to invest in sectors including health care and logistics, said sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

The move by CDH, one of China’s largest alternative investment firms, underscores its confidence that investors are still keen on China’s fast-growing new-economy sectors despite its economic slowdown and tighter liquidity following Sino-U.S. trade tensions and China’s war on debt.

It is also raising a yuan-denominated fund with a target size of about 3 billion yuan (US$448 million), according to the sources.

The dollar fund will complement its onshore investments by focusing on Chinese firms using overseas structures such as variable-interest entities, said another sources.

China-focused private equity and venture capital managers raised a combined US$37 billion last year in dollar-denominated funds, slightly down from US$40 billion in 2017, according to data provider Preqin.

Beijing-based CDH Investments, co-founded by chairman Wu Shangzhi and CEO Jiao Shuge in 2002 as one of China’s earliest private equity firms, is best known for its dealmaking in traditional industries such as consumption and manufacturing in the early years.

It now manages about US$18 billion in assets and has been a major investor in the world’s largest pork supplier, WH Group, and leading appliance maker, Midea Group.

In 2015, it established CDH VGC in a bid to deepen its push into the country’s new-age sectors and build up its expertise in venture and growth-stage investments. CDH VGC closed its first fund of US$850 million in committed capital in December 2016.(SD-Agencies)