To provide a metal-coated carbon fiber chopped strand having suppressed defect of easy peeling of the metal, coating, exhibiting excellent composite performance by improving the wettability of the metal-coated carbon fiber chopped strand with a thermoplastic resin, having high collectability in dry-blending and enabling easy dispersion of fibers in a molding machine and provide its production process and a fiber-reinforced thermoplastic resin composition produced by using the strand.

The metal-coated carbon fiber chopped strand is produced by coating a carbon fiber having surface crease with a metal preferably in a state to develop the crease on the metal surface and sizing the obtained metal-coated carbon fiber with a sizing agent consisting of an aqueous emulsion containing a copolymer resin and a nonionic surfactant. Since the crease of the starting carbon fiber is developed on the metal surface of the metal-coated carbon fiber chopped strand, the bonding area with the resin is increased by the crease to improve the adhesivity to the resin by the anchoring effect and give a molded article having good composite characteristics by molding a thermoplastic resin compounded with the chopped strand.