The Chinese economy is regaining positive momentum with the driving force of key industries and many German companies hope to invest in the Chinese market and benefit from it, said Maximilian Butek, executive director of the German Chamber of Commerce in China.
Federal Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz is paying a three-day official visit to China from Sunday to Tuesday. He is accompanied by senior representatives of a number of renowned German companies, including Siemens, Bayer, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Zeiss.
In an interview with China Media Group in Beijing ahead of Scholz's visit, Butek expressed his confidence in China's ability to address its structural challenges, achieve qualitative growth in key sectors, and continue its path of economic development.
"I think the Chinese economy is facing challenges, not because of cycles, which are normal, but because of structural challenges. We have recognized that the economy has strong dependence on the real estate market. This has been recognized for many years. Now [the Chinese economy] is trying to achieve qualitative growth, which means that we should focus on key areas to become the market leader there. These areas include, for example, the automotive industry, battery technology, semiconductors, renewable energies, environmental protection, etc," said Butek.
Butek said he views China as a valuable partner for Germany and believes that mutually beneficial collaborations can contribute to the economic progress of both countries.
"So, I think productivity is the issue that will drive us over the next 10 or 15 years. Because if we assume that we have had a cake for the last 30 years, an overall economy that has continued to grow and that we are now at a moment where we do not see any disruptive changes that lead to new growth. Thus making the cake bigger, we can only solve this through productivity. And on the one hand, we can of course support the high productivity that is achieved here with our technologies, because as you may know, the productivity in Germany is already very high. But we still have a shortage of new skilled workers, which means that we have had to invest in innovation, automation and digitalization for the last few decades, which we can certainly share with China," said Butek.
"On the other hand, China has created such an innovative environment with its extremely well-trained talents, with its good universities, and with the driving force of the Chinese people. And we also want to benefit from these innovations. That's why our German companies have so many research and development centers here, and they can benefit from this ecosystem. The fundamentals are all such that the economy in China will regain positive momentum. We have a very productive society, we have a very large market, we have finance, we have raw materials that we can find here. So, basically, it would be naive to think that the Chinese economy will not recover," he said.
China remained Germany's most important trade partner for the eighth year in a row in 2023, data from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) of Germany showed in February.
China continued to be "by far the most important supplier country for Germany, as it has been since 2015," noted Destatis.
Telecommunications equipment, processing machines, and other electronic devices, as well as cars, were Germany's most imported goods from China in terms of value, according to the figures.
Germany continues to grow its economic ties with China. Direct investments made in the country rose by over 4 percent to a record 11.9 billion euros (about 12.7 billion U.S. dollars), according to the data published on February 14 by the German Economic Institute.
German business expert optimistic about prospect of China’s economic development
