German firms eager to reach Chinese market at November's Beijing expo

The second China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE) will open its doors in Beijing this November. The event brings together businesses from across the globe to strengthen the links that make China a crucial part of the global supply chain. 

While the main event starts a little later in the year, the team behind the expo have been in Europe, signing agreements with partners in Germany.

In 2023, the first CISCE Expo brought together more than 500 exhibitors, generating around $21 billion in trade. For 2024, organizers want to take this forward and have been in Dusseldorf.

Lin Shunjie, CISCE chairman, told CGTN he wants to get more German involvement on board.

"When we talk about German companies… we have been reliable partners for a long, very long term," he said. "This also shows the resilience of the supply chain. So, Chinese companies and German companies, in terms of international supply chain cooperation, are ideal partners."

It's a trading relationship that was worth almost $280 billion last year. China has been Germany's biggest trading partner for the last eight years in a row. 

Ren Hongbin, President of the China Council for International Trade, told those gathered that German business is also stepping up investments in China.

"This international cooperation between two countries sets a great example for others. The investment Germany made in China in 2023 was around $13 billion and it was record-breaking. It reaches 10 percent of Germany's overseas investment total, and also the highest in the past 10 years."

China has a crucial role in keeping global business moving. According to Clemens Schütte, Director of International Business for Messe Düsseldorf, this is why holding the supply chain expo there makes so much sense.

He declared: "It's today not only a production factory for the world, but it's really a very innovative, technologically advanced country, like Germany. There are so many interfaces and so many common topics and challenges, and from my viewpoint, that makes it very important to take common steps also in the future to develop this relationship."

Liu Jing, an automotive supply chain process owner, explained what he saw as the synergy between Germany and China in the world of business.

He told CGTN: "In many industries, e.g. the car industry, medical industry, many of the packaging materials, raw materials, and spare parts etc come from China. Germany has great technology and production equipment. So what we see is many products are made in Germany with Chinese components and then sold back to China." 

He continued: "China is a market with great potential. We have a huge population and purchasing power."  

The recent signing of an agreement of cooperation between China and Germany should ensure that companies from the latter will be prevalent at November's expo.

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