High-tech product growth to boost ties

Investment in technology-based services and high-end product trade, such as cloud platform systems, smart manufacturing pilots and demonstration projects, and sensors and industrial automation goods, is set to account for an even greater proportion of Sino-German bilateral trade, said officials and experts.

Chinese investment in Germany has no longer been heavily concentrated in regular manufacturing and greenfield sectors in the past few years. It has started to be targeted at more high-tech companies for acquisitions, such as leading robotics manufacturer Kuka AG, which received a takeover offer from Chinese consumer products company Midea Group in 2016.

Feng Yaoxiang, spokesman for the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade in Beijing, said Chinese companies are eager to have the most modern technologies.