Government investment fund Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) plans to invest more than RM1 billion in overseas markets this year, a report said on Thursday.

"We target between five and 10 percent of our (investment) portfolio to be done this year in overseas markets," PNB chairman Hamad Kama Piah Che Othman was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.

PNB is slowly expanding its overseas operations, he said.

"We have always been investing overseas and we are slowly expanding the portion," he said. "We hope our people in the two new offices can learn as quickly as possible so that we can give more funds for them to manage."

PNB has opened offices in Singapore and Britain.