On the afternoon of July 7, the Jiangsu-Germany Dialogue 2022, themed “Innovation, Cooperation, and Win-win,” was held in the Sino-German (Changzhou) Innovation Industrial Park (SGIP). 

Shi Mingde, president of China-Germany Friendship Association, and Sheng Lei, mayor of Changzhou, attended the opening ceremony.

Mayor Sheng said in her speech that Changzhou has put into practice new development concepts, with its positioning as an international star city of intelligent manufacturing and a pivotal hub in the Yangtze River Delta. The city has also implemented the "532" strategy to solidly promote high-quality development.

Since the beginning of this year, Changzhou has added four new projects each with a total investment exceeding 100 million US dollars and approved foreign-invested projects worth 1.06 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 11.4%. This proves that against the complex and difficult backdrop, foreign investors are optimistic about the Chinese market and have the desire to take root in Changzhou.

Germany boasts a well-developed manufacturing industry, with its innovation capacity leading the world. Changzhou’s advantages in technology, capital, and market are highly complementary to Germany’s, showing broad opportunities for cooperation. 

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between China and Germany. Standing at a new historic point, Changzhou will actively promote friendly cooperation with Germany in trade, investment, technological innovation, culture, and education. Stepping up the city’s progress to becoming a new highland for innovative cooperation with Germany, Changzhou will become a new model for comprehensive exchanges between China and Germany. 

At the end of her speech, Sheng sincerely invited more German friends to visit Changzhou where they will have a pleasant experience and find great investment opportunities. Changzhou is willing to strengthen all-around exchanges with German friends, deepen cooperation in various fields, and build more platforms for mutually beneficial cooperation and people-to-people bonds. 

“With the passionate, honest, and hospitable people of Changzhou, we will serve all investors with great integrity and an excellent business environment,” said Sheng, looking forward to working with everyone towards greater opportunities and a shared future. 

Shi Mingde said in his speech that over the past five decades, China and Germany have achieved win-win development through pragmatic cooperation. The two sides are seeing broad opportunities for cooperation in environmental protection, intelligent manufacturing, new energy, digital economy, and many other areas. 

The Jiangsu-Germany cooperation has a good foundation, while Changzhou’s industrial structure is quite similar to that of Germany, said Shi, adding his expectation for Changzhou as a new highland for Sino-German cooperation in the post-pandemic era.

Other keynote speakers include Xu Jingbo, vice president of AHK Greater China, Du Chunguo, consul general of China in Düsseldorf, Germany, Thomas Kufen, mayor of Essen, Germany, and Michael Jäcke, mayor of Minden, Germany. 

At the opening ceremony, two memorandums of cooperation were signed between Changzhou Municipal People’s Government and the German Chamber of Commerce in China, and between SGIP and Commerzbank. The Incubation Center for German Enterprises was also unveiled at the event.

Deputy mayor Huan Heng hosted the opening ceremony. Secretary-general Zhou Chengtao attended the event. 

The event also had panel talks on high-tech innovation and win-win cooperation in a post-pandemic era, as well as Jiangsu-German cooperation on digital transformation and smart manufacturing. 

Over the years, Changzhou has been comprehensively pursuing German standards, communicating with, and reaching out to potential German partners, yielding fruitful results in economy, trade, education, technological innovation, sister cities, and many other areas. So far, there have been 46 Changzhou-invested projects with an agreed investment of 487 million US dollars in Germany, making Germany Changzhou's most important trading partner, foreign capital source, and investment destination in the EU.

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