BEIJING - The government will soon come out with environmental protection guidelines for domestic companies planning overseas investments, ministry officials said on Thursday.

According to experts, the guidelines will enhance the nation's "soft power" in the global arena and foster more investment deals.

Domestic companies that have overseas operations will have to take adequate steps to protect the environment and shoulder more corporate social responsibility (CSR), they said.

The new rules will help improve the quality of overseas investments and are called Chinese Overseas Direct Investment Environment Protection Guidelines, said Yang Zhaofei, director-general of the Department of Policies, Laws and Regulations under the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

The commerce and environment protection ministries and the China Banking Regulatory Commission are also involved in drafting the guidelines.

The rules will include other factors like the evaluation of environmental impact, agreed protection mechanism, compensation and CSR, said Yang without revealing a timeframe for the guidelines.

"Companies that violate the rules will have to pay for their actions, and in some cases stop overseas investments," he said.

The government move comes at a time when Chinese companies have been accused by the foreign media of going ahead with investment plans without considering the impact on the local environment and communities.

"Objectively speaking, there do exist cases that have caused damage and tarnished the reputation of Chinese overseas enterprises. Therefore, there is an urgent need to standardize overseas investments and improve quality," said Zhang Lijun, director of the Department of Asia Affairs under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"The overseas performance of domestic companies reflects the image and influence of the Chinese government, and is also an important indicator of the nation's soft power," Zhang said at a forum on environmental policies in Beijing on Thursday.