General

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Germany, German Federal Chancellor Scholz will pay an official visit to China on November 4. Sino-German economic and trade relations have attracted attention from all walks of life.

Economic and trade cooperation is known as the "ballast stone" of Sino-German relations. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations 50 years ago, China and Germany have adhered to open exchanges, sought common development, and based on the principle of mutual benefit and win-win results, have continuously deepened economic and trade cooperation and achieved fruitful results, bringing tangible benefits to the enterprises and people of the two countries.

Economic and trade cooperation continues to deepen

China and Germany share extensive common interests, broad common opportunities and common responsibilities as major countries. The two countries have formed an all-round, multi-level and wide-ranging economic and trade cooperation pattern.

China and Germany are each other's important international trade and investment partners. The bilateral international trade volume has increased from less than US$300 million at the beginning of the establishment of diplomatic relations to more than US$250 billion in 2021. Germany is China's most important trading partner in Europe, and China has become Germany's largest trading partner for six consecutive years. From January to September this year, the trade volume between China and Germany reached 173.6 billion US dollars, which continued to grow; Germany's actual investment in China increased by 114.3%. Up to now, the stock of two-way investment has exceeded 55 billion US dollars.

In recent years, German companies are seizing the development opportunities of China, the world's second largest economy, continuing to promote investment in China, showing their own advantages in the Chinese market and enjoying China's development dividends. The "Business Confidence Survey 2021/2022" report previously released by the German Chamber of Commerce in China and KPMG shows that in 2021, nearly 60% of German companies in China will achieve business growth, and more than 70% of the interviewed companies said they will continue to increase investment in China .

It is worth mentioning that in early September this year, the first unit of the German BASF Group's integrated base project in Zhanjiang, Guangdong was put into operation. The total investment of the BASF (Guangdong) integrated base project is about 10 billion euros, which is the largest single project invested by a German company in China. After the project is completed, Zhanjiang, Guangdong will become BASF's third largest integrated production base in the world.

At the same time, Germany is also becoming a hot spot for Chinese companies to invest. Ningde Times, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, and Honeycomb Energy have successively settled in Germany.

"The close economic ties between China and Germany are the result of the development of globalization and the laws of the market. This kind of economic complementarity is beneficial to the enterprises and people of the two countries. Both sides have benefited a lot from practical cooperation." Press statement of the Ministry of Commerce Ren Shu Jueting said at the previous regular press conference that China will unswervingly promote high-level opening up, continue to improve a market-oriented, rule-of-law, and internationalized business environment, and expand international cooperation with countries including Germany. Create better conditions for trade cooperation. The Chinese side is willing to work with the German side to jointly promote the mutually beneficial, stable and long-term economic and trade relations between the two countries, so as to inject more stability and positive energy into the development of the world economy.

Deepen the potential of mutually beneficial cooperation

It is generally believed in the industry that looking forward to the future, from addressing climate change to coordinating macroeconomic policies, from actively expanding green environmental protection and service trade to deepening cooperation in new technologies such as artificial intelligence and digitalization, there is a broad space for China and Germany to tap the potential of mutually beneficial international trade cooperation.

Zhang Jianping, deputy director of the Academic Committee of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, said that both China and Germany are major manufacturing countries in the world, and they are also core countries in the global supply chain system. Germany is a model of the steady development of manufacturing in developed countries; China is the country with the largest added value of manufacturing in the world, and it is also the only country in the world that has all the industrial categories in the United Nations industrial classification. From the perspective of the position of the global value chain, Germany is mainly in the high-end segment, while some industries in China rank among the global high-end, while some industrial links are in the low-end. The industries of the two countries are highly complementary and there is huge potential for cooperation. In particular, under the new global development pattern and new development trend, Germany is facing a severe energy crisis, and its manufacturing industry urgently needs to seek broader international trade cooperation, and it can strengthen cooperation with China in the field of manufacturing.

Yan Shiqiang, an associate researcher at the Institute of European Research, Ministry of Commerce, said that China's "14th Five-Year Plan" proposed to focus on strategic emerging industries, which has many coincidences with the ten key high-tech industries proposed by Germany's "National Industrial Strategy 2030" released in 2019. The point is that China and Germany should further tap the potential for cooperation in the fields of high-end equipment manufacturing, chemicals, new energy vehicles, renewable energy, energy conservation and environmental protection, and modern service industries.

Yan Shiqiang further analyzed that in the field of high-end equipment manufacturing, with the development of a new generation of information technology and the arrival of the intelligent age, China and Germany can focus on the future market and deepen cooperation in high-end equipment manufacturing represented by intelligent robots; in the field of new energy vehicles, The new energy and connected car industry can be regarded as the priority direction of Sino-German auto industry cooperation for upgrading; in the field of energy conservation and environmental protection, Germany is one of the world's leading countries in environmental protection technology. New energy vehicle battery recycling has great potential for cooperation; in the field of renewable energy, Germany proposes to achieve 80% renewable energy power generation by 2030, and China, as a leader in the global photovoltaic industry, supplies more than 70% of photovoltaic modules, the prospects for cooperation between the two parties are promising; in the field of service industry, the two parties have great potential for cooperation in modern service industries such as modern finance, vocational education, health and elderly care, and green logistics, which can accelerate the coordinated development of manufacturing and services and promote Business model innovation and format innovation.

Zhang Jianping also said that Germany actively advocates low-carbon and green development, leading the world in energy-saving equipment and technology, and leading the world in the proportion of new energy applications. At present, China's new energy equipment products and the technology and equipment level of energy saving and emission reduction are also constantly improving. In the future development process, both sides will have a lot of room for mutual trade and investment, including products and services that meet each other's needs.