30 Years of Shandong – Bayern

Shandong and Bavaria have been sister province and state for 30 years and achieved good results in various fields. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of their sister relations, minister-president of Bayern (Bavaria) Horst Seehofer visited the provincial capital Jinan. He met the provincial party secretary Liu Jiayi on 11 May 2017.

Liu welcomed the visit of Seehofer and his delegation. He said Shandong is a leading province in economy, culture and resources in China. Now it is stepping up efforts to transfer the old energy into the new one. Furthermore, it promotes supply-side structural reform to realize economic transformation and development. Bavaria is an economic powerhouse of Germany, also a highland of research and technology. So there is great potential for cooperation between the territories.

“I hope this anniversary will be a new start for both sides. We should deepen strategic cooperation, broaden investment scale and cooperative areas and strengthen project docking. This way we will achieve a win-win cooperation,” said Liu Jiayi.

“Both our economies are vigorous,” said Seehofer. “What impressed me deeply is the love of the people here for their homeland.” Seehofer said he wishes the final implementation of the cooperative projects and more substantial cooperative fruits to benefit the two peoples.

According to both sides, the meeting was productive. They achieved good progress in the cooperation, docking Germany’s “Industry 4.0” and China’s “Made in China 2025”.

The Speaker of Bavarian State Parliament Barbara Stamm and Shandong leaders Yu Xiaoming and Wang Shujian attended the meeting.

History of the Partnership

In 1985, then minister-president of Bavaria Franz Josef Strauss led a business delegation to Shandong. This marked a prelude to the friendly relationship between the two territories. Then vice governor Ma Shizhong and Strauss signed a joint declaration on developing sister province-state relations on 9 July 1987. They opened a new chapter of friendly exchange and cooperation between the two sides. In 2010, Shandong party chief Jiang Yikang and minister-president Seehofer signed an agreement on establishing a strategic partnership in Munich. This lifted the relation between the two parties to a new level.

By 2014, they developed a number of sister city and cooperative relations even between TV stations. They set up economic and trade representative offices in each other’s province and state. The Provincial People’s Congress signed an agreement with the State Parliament on a fixed exchange relation. Various branches of the government established relations and developed fruitful cooperation and exchanges in all fields.

Previous provincial leaders, including Liang Buting, Zhao Zhihao, and Jiang Chunyun, have led delegations to visit Bavaria. Franz Josef Strauss and Edmund Stoiber have visited Shandong in 1985, 1995 and 2003 successively. The precious two speakers of the State Parliament John Paume and Alos Guleck have also paid a visit to their partner province in 2000 and 2008. Horst Seehofer visited in April 2010.

Bavaria is one of the most powerful regions in economy that shares sister province-state relations with Shandong. Both sides valued the economic and trade cooperation at the beginning of their relationship. The Free State, largest and second populous in Germany, is source of one third of total German investment in Shandong. Bavaria has invested over 20 projects in the province, involving about one billion dollars as foreign capital.

Projects

The Bavarian state government provided great support by training 1200 talents in railway, aviation, finance, telecom, communication, and metereology. It also helped to complete these joint projects:

  • Beer Technical Center established at Shandong Polytechnic University
  • Telecom Technical Center established at Shandong Telecommunication School
  • Land Consolidation Village Renewal Project of Zhanglou Village in Qingzhou City completed in 1988
  • Weichai Vocational Training Center built in Weifang City in 1989
  • Dual System Agricultural Vocational Education Center built in Pingdu City in 1990
  • Vocational Teacher Training Center built in Qingzhou City in 1998
  • Sino-German Rural Development Research Center jointly established in 2003

All this could not be completed without the support and participation of various Bavaria partners:

  • Ministry of the Interior
  • Technical University of Munich
  • Ministry of Education and Culture, Science and Art
  • Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry
  • Dillingen Academy for Teacher Training
  • Hanns Seidel Foundation

The Bavarian state government invested over 10 million € for the construction of these projects. It also dispatched long-term and short-term experts, over 100 people in total.

The province and the free state achieved remarkable results in higher education. A number of universities established friendly interschool exchange relations. They conducted fruitful exchanges and activities.

The Shandong-Bavaria Educational Cooperation Programme Commission plays an important role in the educational cooperation between both sides. The  partners established this commission in 1993. In 2007, they even founded the Sino-German Center for Cooperation of Universities for the further all-around cooperation of universities of Shandong and Bavaria.

Image © dpa / Sven Hoppe. Information Source: www.shandong-bayern.com

Both Shandong and Bayern (Bavaria) belong to the G8x8, the most productive places on earth. Shandong ranks third among Chinese provinces, taking the 2×3 spot on the chessboard, and contributes 8.7 percent to the national GDP. Bayern ranks second among the German laender, is located on field 4×2, and produced 18.1 percent of the German GDP.

 

Silk Road to NRW

Sichuan party secretary Wang Dongming and Nordrhein-Westfalen (NRW) minister president Hannelore Kraft participated in the official inauguration of a new NRW China Project Office in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province. NRW economics minister Garrelt Duin pointed out that China is currently one of the leading investors worldwide, and that Chinese enterprises get more and more engaged in Europe. In foreign direct investment of Chinese enterprises, NRW ranks first among the 16 German laender. “Sichuan is our partner province and one of the most important locations for hi-tech, chemicals, and logistics in China,” said Duin. “Meanwhile, NRW is now the most desired location in Germany and a bridge to Europe for Chinese enterprises. We hope to welcome even more companies in the future, especially from Sichuan province.”

According to Petra Wassner, CEO of the NRW investment promotion agency, more than 850 Chinese enterprises already set up branches there. “This includes well-known corporations such as Donghua, Genertec, Hisense, Huawei, Lenovo, Lingyun, Minmetals, Sany, Shanggong, Wisco, and Wolong. Just last year, 79 firms from China newly established a business here.”

The Chengdu office aims at intensifying direct contacts with local associations, institutions, and the political community, in order to better inform them about the strength of NRW as a business location. It will provide individual services to potential investors of all sectors: market information, investment conditions, and practical assistance with setting up a business. Sichuan and NRW are directly connected by rail. This “New Silk Road” is a major part of China’s new long-term development strategy, also known as the “Belt and Road Initiative”.

Sichuan ranks 6th in GDP among Chinese provinces and occupies the 2×6 field on the G8x8 chessboard. Nordrhein-Westfalen (NRW) ranks first in GDP among German states and occupies the 4×1 field on the board. Sichuan contributed 4.2 percent to the national GDP of China, NRW contributed 21.4 percent to the national GDP of Germany. To compare province and state with countries, Sichuan exceeded Thailand (world GDP rank 26), NRW exceeded Switzerland (20) and Saudi-Arabia (21).

 

China’s New TVET Policy

Interview of China Daily – European Weekly with Helmut Schoenleber of GIZ

What role does GIZ play in promoting the vocational training cooperation between Germany or even Europe and Shenyang? What are the main achievements? 

We have been cooperating with China in technical and vocational education and training (TVET) for more than 30 years. In three decades, we assisted the Chinese Ministry of Education (MOE), the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MoHRSS), provincial government institutions in charge of vocational education and many individual vocational schools and training centers to improve the results of their efforts in training young people according to the needs of the business community. During the first two decades, German enthusiasm in this type of cooperation was much stronger than Chinese demand, while since the third decade, Chinese interest grew noticeably, but German financial support declined.

China Daily European Weekly Wins International Newspaper Award

China Daily European Weekly Wins International Newspaper Award

During the first decades, we at GIZ have been convinced that it makes no sense to try and apply the German vocational education system 100% in China. Our two countries have much in common, but there are differences in traditions, the mentality of the people, and the political environment. We aimed to promote some localized version of German best practice in China. Localized means a version of the German system that is adapted to Chinese framework conditions. But just recently, China has been asking more and more to learn the authentic German TVET system. The new trend is to make Chinese framework conditions fit to an excellent TVET system rather than to make the excellent system fit to conditions.

I think this is actually one of our main achievements. Our predecessor organizations and today’s GIZ have trained, both in Germany and in China, thousands of Chinese vocational teachers, school principals and deans, educational policy researchers and government officials. Almost everyone working in vocational education in China is quite familiar with the German “dual” vocational education system and its advantages. All these people understand now why a small country without natural resources such as Germany can become so successful as a global supplier of top quality products. The secret is the excellence of Germany’s workforce, guaranteed by the excellence of its vocational education system.

Shenyang, Liaoning, and all of Northeast China have been a special focus of Sino-German cooperation in TVET since the 1980s. We first supported some selected schools in improving training for selected vocations, such as welding, CNC, or automobile mechatronics. In the 1990s, we assisted in the development of vocational education research institutions. One on the national level in Beijing, one in Shanghai, and one in Liaoning. They are still important providers of political advice to the MOE and the State Council today. The MOE vice minister, Mrs. Lu Xin, is quite familiar with the German dual system of vocational education, and she was the vice governor of Liaoning province at the time.

How do you view the  significance of “decisions on advancing the development of modern vocational  training” issued by the State Council in June?  

We were all waiting eagerly for this long-announced new policy paper on vocational education in China, which we expected to include some major reforms and big innovation. Vice Minister Mme Lu Xin introduced a few key aspects of the new policy during the China Development Forum in March 2014. After that, it took three more months before Document No. 19 was issued by the State Council. Quite honestly, when I first read through it, I was much disappointed. Yes, there are some novel points on practice-oriented examinations and easier ways to switch from higher vocational education to university education. There are some new points on turning universities into higher education institutions of applied sciences.

MOE Vice Minister Lu Xin at the China Development Forum 2014

MOE Vice Minister Lu Xin at the China Development Forum 2014

There is also some talk about stronger involvement of enterprises and industrial sectors in education. What I had expected but still found missing was that the business communities would actually take over the responsibility for vocational education in their sectors. In my opinion, it is the business community and not the government who needs well-trained workers. Enterprises are the prime beneficiaries of an excellent TVET system, not the government. But the State Council Document No. 19 is still focusing on the government and its schools being in charge of TVET. It says, the government will provide tax breaks and other benefits for enterprises who participate in vocational education. I had been hoping for a clearer and much stronger role and initiative of enterprises and the business communities in all TVET matters.

Maybe my expectations were too high, and China just needs more time. I recognize that the document is revolutionary in terms of the importance it applies to vocational education. It aims to deal with one of the most fundamental problems of vocational education in China: the fact that all parents hope their child will go to university, and very few parents hope their child will go to vocational school – he or she might have to get his or her hands dirty in his or her later job! Document No. 19 is an effort to make vocational education socially acceptable. If it succeeds in that, other improvements to the TVET system will be much easier to make.

Compared with Germany vocational training system, what are the  deficiencies of China’s vocational system? How can we learn from Germany?  

The main difference is exactly what I just mentioned hoping for in the new State Council policy. In Germany, enterprises and the business communities are clearly responsible for vocational education. A vocational student in Germany first has to find an enterprise, his parents have to sign a vocational training contract with the enterprise, before a vocational school will be assigned. The German TVET law says: institutions in charge of vocational education are the chambers of commerce and industry, the chambers of skilled crafts, the chambers of independent professions, depending on the vocation to be learned. All these chambers are organizations of the business communities, they are institutions of public law where majority decisions are made by all entrepreneurs of a region, who are mandatory members of their chamber. This includes all important decisions on vocational education. I am afraid such institutions have not yet been established in modern China.

Vocational education in Germany means training young people according to the current and future needs of the business community. Young people are quite sure to find a job for life at the enterprise that trains them, and they can expect to be paid more than a university graduate with little practical experience. This is the reason for most young people and their parents to accept a vocational education being just about equal to a university education. By the way, in Germany we are not afraid to get our hands dirty on the job.

Do u think it is urgent for China to push forward the vocational training to make China move up the value chain, transforming from made in china to high quality manufacturing?

High quality manufacturing can be achieved in two ways: (1) a very high level of automation, by using high-precision and highly reliable machinery and equipment and very few people; (2) by using highly qualified people to manufacture things not to be produced by robots. We are already seeing a lot of (1) in China, with robots – many of them made in Germany – producing the latest iPhones and BMWs, but (2) is much more typical for Germany than for China.

Each country does not have to aim at doing everything better than each other country. It is a key element of globalization that we efficiently share work between countries. The German government is promoting the computerization of traditional industries such as manufacturing, which is expected to form the next industrial revolution within ten to twenty years. It is called Industry 4.0. On the other hand, China was able to skip several evolutionary steps it took Western countries to reach new technological milestones. For example, your country never really introduced video tapes, but jumped directly to the VCD. China can build airports in one or two years, while Germany needs to discuss a new airport ten years before starting to build it. So, each country has its competitive advantage. One of China’s big advantages is speed, one of Germany’s is high quality. But to maintain high speed, you still need a highly qualified work force, and that means you need a TVET system governed by the business community.

Building a Strong Platform

China Daily Editor’s note

As a German federally-owned enterprise, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is a global service provider in international cooperation and professional training for sustainable development. GIZ operates in 130 countries with 17,000 staff members worldwide and provides policy advice, knowledge transfer, capacity building and organisational development support in areas where German know-how is world-leading.

GIZ has more than three decades of experience in cooperation with China, and 28 years with Northeast China. What changes happened in Shenyang over the past decades? What are the main achievements of the cooperation between Germany and Shenyang? Helmut Schönleber, Programme Director of GIZ, shares his views with China Daily.

Q: What role does GIZ play in promoting the cooperation between Germany and Shenyang? What are the main achievements?

Commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Co-operation and Development, GIZ launched projects in China since 1982. We began our first project in Northeast China in 1986, a Training Centre for Welding in Harbin. Just a few years later, we started to support the Liaoning Vocational and Technical Education Research Centre in Shenyang, and implemented our regional projects from our Shenyang Office ever since.

In the Liaoning Employment Promotion and Training Programme, we worked together with our Chinese partners on improving the labour market structure, supported highly skilled talent training, provided training for business start-ups, and initiated a Public-Private Cooperation Project between BMW-Brilliance and vocational schools in Shenyang. In total, we held more than 60 symposiums and trainings with over 2,500 participants.

In 2011, we started to cooperate with Development and Reform Commissions in a programme to support the new State Council strategy on integration and coordination of economic development in the Northeast. The programme achieved a good improvement in cooperation between provincial stakeholders, and contributed to an impulse on German business contacts with Northeast China.

In our projects, we arranged many mutual visits of German and Shenyang officials, experts, and entrepreneurs to build new partnerships. Germany established a Consulate General in Shenyang, and German Lufthansa Airlines connected Frankfurt and Shenyang with a non-stop flight, starting in 2012.

Q: Why are German enterprises interested in investing in Shenyang?

Germany and Northeast China are similar in climate and in the character and business habits of our people, such as seeking excellence in profession. More and more Germans know about the economic development of the Shenyang Metropolitan Area as a hub to reach all of Northeast Asia. When we did research for our “China Liaoning Business Guide”, we even found out that Liaoning was the fastest growing sub-national region in the world, far ahead of Ile-de-France, Greater London, California, Tokyo-to or Bavaria. Both the matching character of people and the amazing growth opportunities are important for attracting German enterprises.

The cooperation between Germany and Shenyang initially focused on big enterprises such as BMW and Brilliance, but the centre of attention is now shifting to small and medium enterprises. They are concerned with demand and supply, the location of customers and competitors, and the political environment when selecting their location for investment.

Q: What factors will German investors consider if they want to invest in Shenyang?

Aside from industry-specific key factors, German companies consider investing here due to the national Shenyang Metro development plan and the preferential policies expected to be applied. Compared to other locations, the Shenyang workforce has a higher level of professional training, but there is still much room for improvement. The city and the provincial government seem to pay attention to provide quality human resources for foreign enterprises.

Q: What’s your suggestion for companies in Shenyang on attracting German partners?

Firstly, German enterprises like to cooperate with foreign partners in the same field of operations. So, Shenyang enterprises should get to know German enterprises in their specific market niche.

Secondly, German companies like partners who apply a similar work attitude as they do. They like precision, specialization, efficiency, reliability, honesty, and openness. Shenyang enterprises with those characteristics will more easily succeed in finding German partners.

It is one of the objectives in our Northeast Programme to promote economic cooperation between enterprises of our two countries. Within our project, over 200 north-eastern enterprises will build cooperation with Germany. We will provide entrepreneurs of Shenyang the opportunity to meet German entrepreneurs. It will be up to them to turn these opportunities into successful cooperation.

Q: In your opinion, what needs to be improved in Shenyang?

Foreign enterprises need foreign people. I suggest Shenyang to pay more attention to providing proper services for these people, such as more international schools for their children, international food and entertainment, and convenient public transportation. Foreigners and Chinese alike also love clean air, so try to improve air quality.

Foreign enterprises also need a strong vocational training system trimmed to their specific needs. German enterprises consider their long-term development more than others, so they require the availability of talents they need in 10 or 20 years.

Shenyang has been looking at the experience of the German Ruhr Area, and adopted some of the lessons learnt. I think there is still much more to be exchanged. Why not intensify the twinning between Shenyang and Düsseldorf and between Liaoning and Baden-Württemberg? We at GIZ will be happy to assist in all these endeavours.

The Shenyoungsters

I like to call the people of Shenyang “Shenyoungsters”. First, they are young compared with the people of European cities, statistically ten years younger than the average age of Germany. You will notice this when you go shopping at one of the malls or pedestrian zones of Shenyang: smiling at you will be mostly tall and pretty girls in their twenties (or at least looking as such) and smart trim young men. Second, their city has been going through an amazing rejuvenation since I first visited in 1985.

In 1985, I was a postgraduate scholarship student at Renmin University of China in Beijing, researching management reforms in the shipbuilding industry of China. The Dean of Economic History, Professor Sun Jian, guided me during an excursion to major shipyards, and our last stop was Dalian Shipyard in Liaoning province, the yard that built the largest ships of China.

At a time when men and women alike were wearing a blue or green Mao suit, when streets were jammed not with cars but with bicycles, when people addressed each other “comrade”, Dalian was a buzzing and relatively westernized city with business and modernization in the air. We interviewed Director Wang Youwei who had massively expanded the Shipyard and actually spoke some German. Afterwards, we took a train from Dalian back to Beijing, with a one-night stopover in Shenyang.

I expected Shenyang to be even more modern and globalized than Dalian, because Dalian was just a so-called “open” port city in Liaoning, while Shenyang was the provincial capital and seat of the government. But on my first visit, Shenyang disappointed me very much. My first impression of Shenyang was that of a huge village in the middle of early industrialization. Even the faces of people seemed dusty. At the time, I saw no reason to ever come back.

And I didn’t, for eleven years. In 1996, I was appointed coordinator of a Sino-German project to support chambers of industry and commerce. We considered the Liaoning chamber to be one of our key partners, main reason for my second visit to Shenyang. Now this Shenyang was quite different from the one of a decade before! There were international hotels, pubs with German beer, many entrepreneurs full of vigour and eager to cooperate with Europe. I met some wonderful people, such as Li Yingzhang of the provincial chamber, descendant of a “capitalist family” whose father had donated the family wealth to the Party in the early 1950s, or Yang Guanxing with a similar background, Chairman of the chamber today. People in general were friendly, especially to Germans, and not as intrusive as elsewhere. Many of my best friends in Shenyang today are friends I met at that time.

In the later 1990s and 2000s, I visited Shenyang many times and witnessed her progress. I moved to live there in 2008, to head the GIZ Shenyang Office and the GIZ LEPT Programme. A year later, Shenyang expanded the airport freeway to eight lanes and became host of “Germany and China – Together in Motion” with some of the high-level events arranged by GIZ. Shenyang built her first subway line, which was opened on the same day Governor Chen Zhenggao honoured me and some other foreign experts with the Liaoning Friendship Award. Shenyang opened a new, large international airport and hosted the National Athletic Games. I had to move back to Beijing, but still consider Shenyang my second home after Germany. My Shenyoungster friends, young or old, are the ones I can trust, rely upon, and both have fun and do serious business with.

Helmut Schönleber

Chateau Hansen

Organic wine from the Desert

Speech of Han Jianping, Chairman of Inner Mongolia Hansen Winery Group Co., Ltd. in Los Angeles, California, 2013-04-20:

Han Jianping, Owner of Chateau Hansen

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am very happy to come to the City of Angels – Los Angeles, where the scenery is very beautiful! Here I feel the unique atmosphere of Southern California and meet so many new friends, that it makes me feel at home.

I am fortunate to participate in this forum with you, because we share a common ideal: we are concerned about the global environment, we aim to create green wealth, and we promote an ecological civilization.

I come from Wuhai City in the desert of Inner Mongolia of Western China, and own a wine business. We spent ten years time to grow high-quality wine grapes in our desert area. Growing wine grapes in this area has created a miracle. The story I bring to you today is our true life story of the past ten years.

The world’s desert area accounts for about 21% of the world’s total land area. Total desertification in China is ​​2.62 million square kilometers, accounting for 27% of the land area. China is one of the countries seriously harmed by desertification, and therefore, sand control is a part of China’s basic national policy.

Wuhai City, my hometown, is located in the West Ordos Plateau, where the two deserts of Ulan Buhe and Kubuchi meet. We have perennial drought, an annual rainfall of about 100mm, and we are located at latitude 39°. This area is ideal for growing grapes of best quality. In 2001, in order to play the grapes advantage to support local viticulture, my brother Mr. Han Shengping gave everything to cultivate grape seedling, to grow grapes in the desert, to establish wineries, and to turn his winemaking career dreams into reality.

After several years of hard work, he looked in the direction of desert viticulture and laid the basis for a growing wine industry. His arduous pioneering and heavy overwork led to his untimely death in 2004. He gave his life for the development of the regional desert wine industry.

I put aside my own enterprise and inherited my brother’s dream of the desert grape and wine. The companies and products are named after him, which is the origin of “Hansen”. Me and my family increased investment starting in 2005, and extended the plantation of wine grapes in the desert.

Wuhai has a desert climate, with little wind and rain, and a sparse vegetation. We have adopted a mode of “grass as a basis, trees as a supplement”, to create a micro-environment protecting the grape seedlings. We so achieve the purpose of windbreak and sand to create conditions for the large-scale cultivation of grapes. We use Israeli drip irrigation technology, and apply organic fertilizer to cultivate organic grapes. After failing again and again, we finally formed our own cropping patterns, built in the desert a piece of lush vineyards and the first desert organic winery in western China!

Hansen’s green industry model is: “based on the Wuhai quality grape-producing areas, using industrial sand grass to open up the grape planting base. We transfer the traditional, passive and transfusion sand control mode, into an active, hematopoietic mode of taking advantage of the desert. Our efforts have not only changed the desert into an oasis, but also made desert vineyards output quality grapes. With our good desert organic grapes, plus an outstanding team of winemakers and international quality production process, we built a first-class organic wine production base in China’s western desert.

Since 2006, Hansen wine won three gold medals at the wine competition in Asia, 2010 became Shanghai World Expo DVNET Pavilion designated wine. Since 2011, we participated in two International Bordeaux Wine Fairs of France, and won twice gold medal in Berlin, Germany, and gold and silver medals several times in France, Britain and other countries. We gained export license to six countries in Europe, and in 2012 became well-known trademark in China!

In review, first of all I want to thank my older brother. He had no regrets having selected desert grape and wine as his cause. I also like to thank the vastness of the desert and endless winding of the Yellow River, for motivating our selfless dedication. Although we have done something for ecological construction and promote the development of local industry, we are most grateful for the great support of the people.

In our green wealth creation process, we follow the famous Chinese academic scientist Qian Xuesen, developer of the modern sand industry concept, who is known as “the father of the sand industry”. Under the guidance of his theory, we scientifically make use of sand, and turn the previously considered maleficial desert to the benefit of mankind, producing high-quality organic wine products which in other areas are difficult to achieve.

Our cause is attached to the whole world. Because everyone who tastes Hansen Desert Organic Wine ingests not only the health and taste, but also our social responsibility and the benefit of mankind feelings.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the philosophy our Hansen people have always pursued: Through the desert cultivation, protection of the environment, dedication to the consumer, we form one positive interaction between industry and society. We inspire the whole community concerned about nature. The whole world agrees with a healthy and sustainable model of development, that at the same time meets human material needs, and takes ecological construction into account. Let us look forward to the future of the human race and jointly build a beautiful Earth!

I sincerely invite you to come to our desert organic winery as a guest! We are looking forward to cooperate with you, to achieve mutual benefit and a win-win situation.

Thank you!

Shandong Business Mission to New Jersey

The US State of New Jersey invited companies to a business mission from Shandong Province, China visiting Newark, New Jersey on Monday, November 23, 2009. The mission consisted of representatives from provincial and municipal governments and business executives from cities of Jinan, Heze, Zaozhuang, Rizhao, Weifang, and Qingzhou in the province.

The Shandong delegates were seeking cooperation with US companies in trade and investment. The delegation included the following industries: chemical, petrochemical, construction,
textile, papermaking, and fertilizer.

Located in China’s most developed east-coast region, Shandong offers a large consumer market potential of 94 million people. China’s 2nd largest economy, Shandong has been maintaining an economic growth rate of more than 10% for 18 consecutive years.

Shandong provincial government is currently promoting business cooperation in areas of hi-tech, advanced manufacturing, environmental protection and service industries, as well as encouraging Shandong-based companies to establish presence overseas.

Information and image source: New Jersey Economic Development Authority

 

China Business Angels

Mentoring Start-ups

In Western countries, “Business Angels” are networks of very experienced entrepreneurs and business managers who, after handing over their own business to the next generation, still feel active and are thus willing to support enterprise startups and young entrepreneurs. They contribute their management experience, their customer and political connections, and often even their own money.

In most cases, a business angel is not only philanthropic. He also enjoys the thrill of a new challenge, he likes to make good use of his well-developed skills, and by investing in a new and promising enterprise, he also aims at making some profit. Therefore, business angels networks not only help to increase the success quota of business startups, they also help senior personages to keep participating actively in social life and to receive commendation from society for it.

Governments and international organizations recognize the valuable role of business angels networks for an efficient and honorable change of generations both in economy and society in general. Many of them support the networks (thus not the individual business angels) financially.

In China, there are no such business angels networks as in the USA or in Europe. But senior personages contributing with their experience to important decisions after their retirement is a tradition here, too. This usually happens on an individual and informal basis, and its focus is on the family and close friends.

Since the history of private entrepreneurship is short (starting in the mid-eighties), the number of retired entrepreneurs who would be ideal business angels is very small. However, many still energetic government leaders were ruled into retirement during recent years, and more to come. Although they don’t have much money to invest in business startups, their connections and managerial skills could be extremely valuable for many young enterprises.

Business startups in China need mentors such as business angels just as urgently as their colleagues in the West. Senior personages in China need the respect of society for their truly valuable contributions after retirement even more then their colleagues in the West. As a platform for society’s commendations and to serve these two demands, China needs to establish a network for business angels.

We currently help to prepare such a network. We are aiming for a platform mainly to be used within China, but also allowing for foreign business angels to support business startups in China and vice versa. Our format will be trilingual Chinese, English, and German. If you are interested in contributing to the establishing of this business angels network in China, please contact us. Become a business angel for “China Business Angels!”