Economic changes in China have set up the world's second-largest economy for a "structural increase" of foreign direct investment in a broad range of industries in the United States over the next decade, according to a director at a New York-based global research and advisory firm.

"China is only at the beginning of a structural catching-up process in global outbound investment," Thilo Hanemann, research director with the Rhodium Group LLC, said in an e-mail to China Daily over the weekend.

Hanemann, who leads RHG's cross-border investment work, said the US will see "strong inflows in the next decade", but the amount of investment from China will depend on a number of factors.