On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Germany, German Federal Chancellor Wolfgang Scholz will pay an official visit to China on November 4. China-germany economic and trade relations have drawn attention from all walks of life.
Economic and trade cooperation is known as the “ballast stone” of China-Germany relations. Over the past 50 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties, China and Germany have continued to deepen economic and trade cooperation under the principle of openness, exchanges, common development and mutual benefit, which has yielded fruitful results and brought tangible benefits to the businesses and peoples of the two countries.
China and Germany share broad common interests, broad common opportunities and common responsibilities as major countries. The two countries have formed an all-dimensional, multi-tiered and wide-ranging pattern of economic and trade cooperation.
China and Germany are each other’s important trade and investment partners. Two-way trade has grown from less than US $300 million in the early years of our diplomatic ties to over US $250 billion in 2021. Germany is China’s most important trading partner in Europe, and China has been Germany’s largest trading partner for six years in a row. In the first nine months of this year, China-Germany trade reached 173.6 billion U.S. dollars and kept growing. German investment in China increased by 114.3 percent in real terms. So far, the stock of two-way investment has exceeded US $55 billion.
In recent years, German companies are seizing the development opportunities in China, the world’s second largest economy, continuously promoting investment in China, showing their advantages in the Chinese market and enjoying the development dividends of China. According to the Business Confidence Survey 2021-2022 jointly released by the German Chamber of Commerce in China and KPMG, nearly 60 percent of the companies in China registered business growth in 2021, and over 70 percent said they would continue to increase investment in China.
It is worth mentioning that in early September this year, Germany’s BASF Group put into operation the first unit of its integrated base project in Zhanjiang, Guangdong Province. The total investment of 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 completion of the project, Zhanjiang will become the third largest integrated production base of BASF in the world.
At the same time, Germany is also becoming a hot destination for Chinese enterprises to invest in. Ningde Times, Guoxun High-tech, Honeycomb Energy and other companies have set up in Germany.
“The close economic ties between China and Germany are the result of globalization and the effect of market rules. The complementary advantages of this economy benefit the enterprises and people of the two countries, and both sides have benefited a lot from practical cooperation.” Shu Jueting, spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce, said at a regular press briefing earlier that China will unswervably promote high-level opening-up, continuously improve the market-oriented, rule-based and international business environment, and create better conditions for expanding economic and trade cooperation with Germany and other countries. China is ready to work with Germany to promote mutual benefit, steady and long-term growth of bilateral economic and trade relations and inject more stability and positive energy into world economic development.