With the Auto China exhibition in Shanghai, the most important industry exhibition for German carmakers has started. In the past, the managers of German brands were overflowing with self-confidence here. It was a stage for world premieres and for showcasing their own successes on the world’s largest market, which VW likes to call its “second home market”. But the mood is now bleak. Outpaced by the local competition and Tesla, the German brands have been forced to eke out a niche existence in the booming electric segment. And even when combustion engines are taken into account, VW has lost its long-held market leadership to local rival BYD.
This has several reasons, as Frank Sieren analyzes: Overly long development phases, insufficient digitalization and false expectations of the buying behavior of Chinese car customers. VW has now reacted: At the exhibition, the Wolfsburg-based company announced a new development center for connected cars. The goal is not only to develop better vehicles, but also to do it faster. Will that be enough? Certainly not.
Meanwhile, the EU is once again debating the right approach toward China. This time, the stage was the European Parliament. At the general debate on China, Josep Borrell and Ursula von der Leyen spoke first for the Council and the Commission. But there was a dispute among the MEPs about one person in particular, who was not there at all, as Amelie Richter reports: France’s President Emmanuel Macron. Many MPs criticized Macron for saying that the Taiwan crisis was none of Europe’s business. However, there was also support for Macron.
The debate showed one thing above all: There is no end in sight to the European polyphony on China.
The German car industry appeared more disillusioned than ever on the opening day of Auto Shanghai. Glittering world premieres like VW’s ID.7 – a kind of electric Passat – BMW’s new i7 M70 xDrive, Daimler’s seven-seater EQB or the new Porsche Cayenne, cannot hide the fact that the situation is more dire than ever. The three shortcomings of their presence in China are likely to be the main concern for them at what has become the world’s most important motor show:
These are flaws that weigh heavily, because they concern things that matter a lot on the Chinese market. The price is still a strong selling point in the face of low brand loyalty. The digital aspects of a car are more important to most Chinese than its looks. And the fact that China’s market is fast and therefore requires quick reaction times is no secret anyway.
For this reason, Volkswagen announced a response at the exhibition. The group will invest around one billion euros in setting up a new development, innovation and procurement center for fully connected electric cars in the Chinese city of Hefei. The new subsidiary, with the project name “100%TechCo”, will combine “vehicle and component R&D and procurement and will reduce development times for new products and technologies by around 30 percent”, VW announced on Tuesday. “By consistently bundling development and procurement capacities as well as integrating local suppliers at an early stage, we will significantly accelerate our development pace,” the statement quoted Ralf Brandstaetter, Group Board Member for China.
A reaction is sorely needed. The numbers for the first quarter are devastating for the Germans. Decade-long market leader VW has been overtaken by China’s electric pioneer BYD and is now only second in car sales, including internal combustion vehicles – with a market share of only 10.3 percent. BMW and Mercedes rank eighth and ninth – with market shares between three and four percent.
The situation is even worse for EVs: One in four cars sold in the Chinese car market, the largest in the world, is already electric. Chinese companies dominate the market with a share of over 80 percent. VW, on the other hand, only holds a market share of less than two percent. Only BMW just barely made it into the top ten (9th place), which is otherwise dominated by Chinese brands. The EV list is also dominated by China’s electric pioneer BYD (25 percent market share), followed by the US manufacturer Tesla, of all companies, with a market share of just over 15 percent.
However, Tesla has two major advantages over BYD. The Americans achieve their market share with two models, BYD with nine. And Tesla generates significantly more revenue per car than BYD. So the argument that a foreign supplier cannot compete with the Chinese does not hold. This is particularly bitter news for German manufacturers.
The poor performance in the EV segment is partly due to a fatal misconception. For far too long, Germans have believed that Chinese customers have the same perspective on EVs as their domestic buyers. For the sake of the environment, many Germans are willing to pay more for EVs. The London-based car analysis company JATO Dynamics has calculated that the price of European EVs has increased by just under 7,000 euros since 2015 to over 55,000 euros. In the USA, the price of these cars has even risen by 10,000 euros to 63,000 euros. In China, on the other hand, the price of electric cars has more than halved in this period, from the equivalent of 66,000 euros to 31,000 euros.
Among international manufacturers, Tesla was the first to recognize this and triggered a discount battle at the beginning of the year. Now everyone has to join in. FAW-Volkswagen, for example, has to offer the ID.4 and the ID.6 at a discount of up to 5,400 euros. SAIC, Volkswagen’s other partner, gives a discount of around 4,000 euros. The BMW Group is trying to maintain its market share by offering the i3 for more than 10,000 euros less. But they can barely take comfort in the fact that the discount battle is also driving one or two of their competitors into bankruptcy and could clean up the market.
The biggest problem for German manufacturers, however, is the development time of a car. While 46 months is not unusual in Germany, Chinese manufacturers can do it in under 30 months. This means they can adapt to new trends faster than the Germans. The Germans always defend themselves by claiming that their quality is superior. The only problem is that customers don’t want to pay for such overengineering. And by now, the Chinese are also producing quite presentable cars in the premium segment.
NIO’s new EL7 and ET7 showed “astonishing maturity and quality both visually and technically” was the recent verdict of the German car magazine Autobild. But the Chinese are also faster and smarter in the volume segment: BYD is presenting its small Seagull EV at the exhibition with a range of 400 or 300 kilometers, depending on the battery – more than enough for a city car. In terms of price, it is hard to beat at between 10,000 and 13,000 euros, including a cobalt-, nickel- and lithium-free sodium-ion battery. In other words, if the German manufacturers do not manage to shorten their development pace, they are doomed. Except for Tesla, the Americans are out, the French too, and the Japanese are in free fall.
Another big topic is digitalization and connected cars. To many Chinese manufacturers, the car is a smartphone on wheels. They think of a car from a digital angle and not from the driving experience. Because that is more in line with the customers’ preferences. Here, too, it is Elon Musk’s Tesla that achieves the symbiosis between driving and IT best among foreign companies.
The biggest concern of the Germans at Auto Shanghai is that they will soon be experiencing in their German market what they are currently going through in China. The fear is not unfounded. China’s car exports have already tripled to 2.5 million vehicles since 2020. This means that China has now moved up to third place in the export world ranking of car manufacturers, just behind Germany with 2.61 million and Japan with around 3 million exported vehicles.
The situation is dramatic for Germans – on an almost unimaginable scale just a few years ago.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s Foreign Affairs Representative, has called for better coordination between EU institutions and member states regarding the common China policy. A cacophony must be avoided, Borrell stressed during the EU Parliament’s general debate on China policy in Strasbourg on Tuesday. He was not least referring to the heavily criticized external impact of the joint visit of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron. The EU foreign affairs representative spoke of coordination problems: “This could have been avoided.”
The fact that there are different positions within the EU is no surprise, said Borrell. “But the goal of a common policy is to smooth out these differences“. This must be jointly worked on within the EU institutions, within the member states and among themselves, demanded Borrell, who spoke for the EU Council at the debate. EU Commission President von der Leyen also reiterated her call for a unified approach to China: “A strong EU China policy relies on strong cooperation between members and institutions, and willingness to avoid ‘divide and conquer’ tactics we might face.”
In the European Parliament, von der Leyen repeated her demand for greater economic independence from China. She does not want to cut economic and political ties. “But there is an urgent need to rebalance our relationship on the basis of transparency, predictability and reciprocity.” Even before she traveled to China, she spoke of “de-risking” in a keynote speech. In critical areas such as energy and health, but also in defense, Europe must become more resilient, she said during the debate.
Regarding the latter, von der Leyen stressed that “we have given ourselves the right tools to deal with security concerns and economic distortions. So we must be more assertive in using them when we need them.” However, at the same time, she said, work must be done on new tools. The need for a new control instrument for European foreign investments in sensitive technologies is currently being examined.
In their speeches, the MEPs then took more shots at her travel partner, Emmanuel Macron, than at von der Leyen. “It is naive to say that Taiwan is none of our business,” said Manfred Weber (CSU), leader of the conservative European People’s Party (EPP), criticizing Macron’s interview on his trip back. This statement had come as a shock to him. The French President should think about who applauded him, Weber said.
During his China trip, Macron called for Europe to act more independently in the Taiwan conflict in an interview with the French newspaper Les Echos. He advocated strategic autonomy and said that Europe must not become Washington’s “vassal”. He also suggested that Europe might not stand by Taiwan in the event of an attack by the People’s Republic. Von der Leyen did not comment on this during her speech in the EU Parliament. She emphasized Brussels’ current direction: “We stand strongly against any unilateral change in the status quo, in particular by the use of force.”
The French side also voiced criticism of the French leader’s behavior. Yannick Jadot, a member of parliament for the French Greens, accused Macron of creating a rift with his statements. “He has made the alliance of democracies fragile,” Jadot said in his speech in plenary. Macron and also German Chancellor Olaf Scholz were focusing more on business deals, repeating the same mistakes they made with Russia, Jadot said in an interview with journalists in Strasbourg. “One has the impression that we have heads of state who are actually goldfish,” Jadot said. “We are giving the same speeches to China as we did to Russia a year and a half ago.”
But Macron also received support. “We don’t need to listen to lessons from a party that methodically built our dependency and sold our infrastructure,” Stéphane Séjourné, French MP, leader of the liberal Renew group and Macron confidant, scoffed at Weber’s direction. It is important now to show consensus, Séjourné said.
The French MEP, for example, spoke out against reviving the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) – as long as the sanctions against MEPs remained in place and the Uyghur Muslim minority was being persecuted. Recent media reports suggested that work was going on behind the scenes in Brussels on a resumption of talks on CAI, both from the Chinese and the European side. The agreement is on the agenda of several high-level meetings next month, the South China Morning Post recently reported.
Macron received praise for his position from the Chinese ambassador to France, Lu Shaye. By insisting that Europe must build its strategic autonomy and defend its own interests, the French leader had spoken “only great truths”. Macron received the support of many “far-sighted” Europeans, such as EU Council President Michel, for this, the Chinese embassy wrote on Twitter on Lu’s behalf. Lu Shaye is considered one of the most extreme “wolf warrior” diplomats.
In the meantime, France’s president continues to work on involving China in a peace initiative on the Ukraine war. Macron has instructed his foreign policy adviser Emmanuel Bonne to work with Beijing’s top diplomat Wang Yi on creating a framework for talks between Ukraine and Russia. This was reported by Bloomberg on Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the events. The report said the French strategy sees potential for talks between Russia and Ukraine before the summer. EU MPs are likely to keep a close eye on the process.
Sinolytics is a European research-based consultancy entirely focused on China. It advises European companies on their strategic orientation and concrete business activities in the People’s Republic.
When Christina Otte went to China for a language semester in 2006, she left Germany as a vegetarian. But in the northeastern port metropolis of Dalian, where she studied at Liaoning Normal University, she simply had to try the meaty delicacies of the region. Even today, the GTAI economic expert praises Peking duck and Hong Shao Qiezi (红烧茄子): “I simply can’t do without it anymore.”
The roots of her passion for China, however, are not in food, but in the Chinese language. She first started with Mandarin during her first semester of business studies in Passau, Germany, where she focused on Southeast Asia. “I really liked the imagery of the language,” Otte says, “for example, the word for computer, diànnăo (电脑), which literally means electric brain.” Later, in Dalian, she still had trouble communicating with her cab drivers at first, and the dictionary remained her constant companion. But by the end of her stay, she mastered the language to such an extent that she won second place in a university language competition.
Today, the 37-year-old’s language proficiency comes in handy: After graduating, Otte took a job in 2012 at Germany Trade and Invest (GTAI), the official economic development agency of the German government. As Deputy Director for East Asia, Otte monitors the Chinese market and provides detailed information to companies wishing to expand. “Typical inquiries from companies usually revolve around how business is actually done in China.” For example: How do I find a suitable supplier or sales partner in China? How are local labor costs developing? What are the regulations for importing food?
The business expert is always available to advise companies on such matters. “We can make use of our wide network by referring to local German chambers of commerce abroad, embassies and associations, or we can conduct analyses ourselves,” explains Otte.
Otte not only focuses on the ambitions of companies, she is also a contact person for concerns. “China is no longer just a partner, but increasingly a competitor.” In many core German industries, Chinese manufacturers are gaining more and more ground.
“We prepared an export analysis last year when we looked at the German mechanical engineering, automotive, chemical and electronics sectors over a 20-year period,” Otte reports. “In all these core sectors, China has caught up incredibly as an exporter worldwide and is becoming a leading market in some cases.” To keep up with the competition, many German companies are trying to adapt their products to local conditions and get them faster on the Chinese market.
Despite her knowledge, Otte feels that the term “expert” does not apply to her. The beauty of her work is that she is always learning something new, she says. That is why she prefers to call herself an “observer”. Outside of work, Otte spends a lot of time with her husband and two children. To unwind, she enjoys swimming, and playing the piano – and she is currently learning to play the erhu (二胡), a traditional Chinese stringed instrument. Dayan Djajadisastra
With the Auto China exhibition in Shanghai, the most important industry exhibition for German carmakers has started. In the past, the managers of German brands were overflowing with self-confidence here. It was a stage for world premieres and for showcasing their own successes on the world’s largest market, which VW likes to call its “second home market”. But the mood is now bleak. Outpaced by the local competition and Tesla, the German brands have been forced to eke out a niche existence in the booming electric segment. And even when combustion engines are taken into account, VW has lost its long-held market leadership to local rival BYD.
This has several reasons, as Frank Sieren analyzes: Overly long development phases, insufficient digitalization and false expectations of the buying behavior of Chinese car customers. VW has now reacted: At the exhibition, the Wolfsburg-based company announced a new development center for connected cars. The goal is not only to develop better vehicles, but also to do it faster. Will that be enough? Certainly not.
Meanwhile, the EU is once again debating the right approach toward China. This time, the stage was the European Parliament. At the general debate on China, Josep Borrell and Ursula von der Leyen spoke first for the Council and the Commission. But there was a dispute among the MEPs about one person in particular, who was not there at all, as Amelie Richter reports: France’s President Emmanuel Macron. Many MPs criticized Macron for saying that the Taiwan crisis was none of Europe’s business. However, there was also support for Macron.
The debate showed one thing above all: There is no end in sight to the European polyphony on China.
The German car industry appeared more disillusioned than ever on the opening day of Auto Shanghai. Glittering world premieres like VW’s ID.7 – a kind of electric Passat – BMW’s new i7 M70 xDrive, Daimler’s seven-seater EQB or the new Porsche Cayenne, cannot hide the fact that the situation is more dire than ever. The three shortcomings of their presence in China are likely to be the main concern for them at what has become the world’s most important motor show:
These are flaws that weigh heavily, because they concern things that matter a lot on the Chinese market. The price is still a strong selling point in the face of low brand loyalty. The digital aspects of a car are more important to most Chinese than its looks. And the fact that China’s market is fast and therefore requires quick reaction times is no secret anyway.
For this reason, Volkswagen announced a response at the exhibition. The group will invest around one billion euros in setting up a new development, innovation and procurement center for fully connected electric cars in the Chinese city of Hefei. The new subsidiary, with the project name “100%TechCo”, will combine “vehicle and component R&D and procurement and will reduce development times for new products and technologies by around 30 percent”, VW announced on Tuesday. “By consistently bundling development and procurement capacities as well as integrating local suppliers at an early stage, we will significantly accelerate our development pace,” the statement quoted Ralf Brandstaetter, Group Board Member for China.
A reaction is sorely needed. The numbers for the first quarter are devastating for the Germans. Decade-long market leader VW has been overtaken by China’s electric pioneer BYD and is now only second in car sales, including internal combustion vehicles – with a market share of only 10.3 percent. BMW and Mercedes rank eighth and ninth – with market shares between three and four percent.
The situation is even worse for EVs: One in four cars sold in the Chinese car market, the largest in the world, is already electric. Chinese companies dominate the market with a share of over 80 percent. VW, on the other hand, only holds a market share of less than two percent. Only BMW just barely made it into the top ten (9th place), which is otherwise dominated by Chinese brands. The EV list is also dominated by China’s electric pioneer BYD (25 percent market share), followed by the US manufacturer Tesla, of all companies, with a market share of just over 15 percent.
However, Tesla has two major advantages over BYD. The Americans achieve their market share with two models, BYD with nine. And Tesla generates significantly more revenue per car than BYD. So the argument that a foreign supplier cannot compete with the Chinese does not hold. This is particularly bitter news for German manufacturers.
The poor performance in the EV segment is partly due to a fatal misconception. For far too long, Germans have believed that Chinese customers have the same perspective on EVs as their domestic buyers. For the sake of the environment, many Germans are willing to pay more for EVs. The London-based car analysis company JATO Dynamics has calculated that the price of European EVs has increased by just under 7,000 euros since 2015 to over 55,000 euros. In the USA, the price of these cars has even risen by 10,000 euros to 63,000 euros. In China, on the other hand, the price of electric cars has more than halved in this period, from the equivalent of 66,000 euros to 31,000 euros.
Among international manufacturers, Tesla was the first to recognize this and triggered a discount battle at the beginning of the year. Now everyone has to join in. FAW-Volkswagen, for example, has to offer the ID.4 and the ID.6 at a discount of up to 5,400 euros. SAIC, Volkswagen’s other partner, gives a discount of around 4,000 euros. The BMW Group is trying to maintain its market share by offering the i3 for more than 10,000 euros less. But they can barely take comfort in the fact that the discount battle is also driving one or two of their competitors into bankruptcy and could clean up the market.
The biggest problem for German manufacturers, however, is the development time of a car. While 46 months is not unusual in Germany, Chinese manufacturers can do it in under 30 months. This means they can adapt to new trends faster than the Germans. The Germans always defend themselves by claiming that their quality is superior. The only problem is that customers don’t want to pay for such overengineering. And by now, the Chinese are also producing quite presentable cars in the premium segment.
NIO’s new EL7 and ET7 showed “astonishing maturity and quality both visually and technically” was the recent verdict of the German car magazine Autobild. But the Chinese are also faster and smarter in the volume segment: BYD is presenting its small Seagull EV at the exhibition with a range of 400 or 300 kilometers, depending on the battery – more than enough for a city car. In terms of price, it is hard to beat at between 10,000 and 13,000 euros, including a cobalt-, nickel- and lithium-free sodium-ion battery. In other words, if the German manufacturers do not manage to shorten their development pace, they are doomed. Except for Tesla, the Americans are out, the French too, and the Japanese are in free fall.
Another big topic is digitalization and connected cars. To many Chinese manufacturers, the car is a smartphone on wheels. They think of a car from a digital angle and not from the driving experience. Because that is more in line with the customers’ preferences. Here, too, it is Elon Musk’s Tesla that achieves the symbiosis between driving and IT best among foreign companies.
The biggest concern of the Germans at Auto Shanghai is that they will soon be experiencing in their German market what they are currently going through in China. The fear is not unfounded. China’s car exports have already tripled to 2.5 million vehicles since 2020. This means that China has now moved up to third place in the export world ranking of car manufacturers, just behind Germany with 2.61 million and Japan with around 3 million exported vehicles.
The situation is dramatic for Germans – on an almost unimaginable scale just a few years ago.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s Foreign Affairs Representative, has called for better coordination between EU institutions and member states regarding the common China policy. A cacophony must be avoided, Borrell stressed during the EU Parliament’s general debate on China policy in Strasbourg on Tuesday. He was not least referring to the heavily criticized external impact of the joint visit of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron. The EU foreign affairs representative spoke of coordination problems: “This could have been avoided.”
The fact that there are different positions within the EU is no surprise, said Borrell. “But the goal of a common policy is to smooth out these differences“. This must be jointly worked on within the EU institutions, within the member states and among themselves, demanded Borrell, who spoke for the EU Council at the debate. EU Commission President von der Leyen also reiterated her call for a unified approach to China: “A strong EU China policy relies on strong cooperation between members and institutions, and willingness to avoid ‘divide and conquer’ tactics we might face.”
In the European Parliament, von der Leyen repeated her demand for greater economic independence from China. She does not want to cut economic and political ties. “But there is an urgent need to rebalance our relationship on the basis of transparency, predictability and reciprocity.” Even before she traveled to China, she spoke of “de-risking” in a keynote speech. In critical areas such as energy and health, but also in defense, Europe must become more resilient, she said during the debate.
Regarding the latter, von der Leyen stressed that “we have given ourselves the right tools to deal with security concerns and economic distortions. So we must be more assertive in using them when we need them.” However, at the same time, she said, work must be done on new tools. The need for a new control instrument for European foreign investments in sensitive technologies is currently being examined.
In their speeches, the MEPs then took more shots at her travel partner, Emmanuel Macron, than at von der Leyen. “It is naive to say that Taiwan is none of our business,” said Manfred Weber (CSU), leader of the conservative European People’s Party (EPP), criticizing Macron’s interview on his trip back. This statement had come as a shock to him. The French President should think about who applauded him, Weber said.
During his China trip, Macron called for Europe to act more independently in the Taiwan conflict in an interview with the French newspaper Les Echos. He advocated strategic autonomy and said that Europe must not become Washington’s “vassal”. He also suggested that Europe might not stand by Taiwan in the event of an attack by the People’s Republic. Von der Leyen did not comment on this during her speech in the EU Parliament. She emphasized Brussels’ current direction: “We stand strongly against any unilateral change in the status quo, in particular by the use of force.”
The French side also voiced criticism of the French leader’s behavior. Yannick Jadot, a member of parliament for the French Greens, accused Macron of creating a rift with his statements. “He has made the alliance of democracies fragile,” Jadot said in his speech in plenary. Macron and also German Chancellor Olaf Scholz were focusing more on business deals, repeating the same mistakes they made with Russia, Jadot said in an interview with journalists in Strasbourg. “One has the impression that we have heads of state who are actually goldfish,” Jadot said. “We are giving the same speeches to China as we did to Russia a year and a half ago.”
But Macron also received support. “We don’t need to listen to lessons from a party that methodically built our dependency and sold our infrastructure,” Stéphane Séjourné, French MP, leader of the liberal Renew group and Macron confidant, scoffed at Weber’s direction. It is important now to show consensus, Séjourné said.
The French MEP, for example, spoke out against reviving the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) – as long as the sanctions against MEPs remained in place and the Uyghur Muslim minority was being persecuted. Recent media reports suggested that work was going on behind the scenes in Brussels on a resumption of talks on CAI, both from the Chinese and the European side. The agreement is on the agenda of several high-level meetings next month, the South China Morning Post recently reported.
Macron received praise for his position from the Chinese ambassador to France, Lu Shaye. By insisting that Europe must build its strategic autonomy and defend its own interests, the French leader had spoken “only great truths”. Macron received the support of many “far-sighted” Europeans, such as EU Council President Michel, for this, the Chinese embassy wrote on Twitter on Lu’s behalf. Lu Shaye is considered one of the most extreme “wolf warrior” diplomats.
In the meantime, France’s president continues to work on involving China in a peace initiative on the Ukraine war. Macron has instructed his foreign policy adviser Emmanuel Bonne to work with Beijing’s top diplomat Wang Yi on creating a framework for talks between Ukraine and Russia. This was reported by Bloomberg on Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the events. The report said the French strategy sees potential for talks between Russia and Ukraine before the summer. EU MPs are likely to keep a close eye on the process.
Sinolytics is a European research-based consultancy entirely focused on China. It advises European companies on their strategic orientation and concrete business activities in the People’s Republic.
When Christina Otte went to China for a language semester in 2006, she left Germany as a vegetarian. But in the northeastern port metropolis of Dalian, where she studied at Liaoning Normal University, she simply had to try the meaty delicacies of the region. Even today, the GTAI economic expert praises Peking duck and Hong Shao Qiezi (红烧茄子): “I simply can’t do without it anymore.”
The roots of her passion for China, however, are not in food, but in the Chinese language. She first started with Mandarin during her first semester of business studies in Passau, Germany, where she focused on Southeast Asia. “I really liked the imagery of the language,” Otte says, “for example, the word for computer, diànnăo (电脑), which literally means electric brain.” Later, in Dalian, she still had trouble communicating with her cab drivers at first, and the dictionary remained her constant companion. But by the end of her stay, she mastered the language to such an extent that she won second place in a university language competition.
Today, the 37-year-old’s language proficiency comes in handy: After graduating, Otte took a job in 2012 at Germany Trade and Invest (GTAI), the official economic development agency of the German government. As Deputy Director for East Asia, Otte monitors the Chinese market and provides detailed information to companies wishing to expand. “Typical inquiries from companies usually revolve around how business is actually done in China.” For example: How do I find a suitable supplier or sales partner in China? How are local labor costs developing? What are the regulations for importing food?
The business expert is always available to advise companies on such matters. “We can make use of our wide network by referring to local German chambers of commerce abroad, embassies and associations, or we can conduct analyses ourselves,” explains Otte.
Otte not only focuses on the ambitions of companies, she is also a contact person for concerns. “China is no longer just a partner, but increasingly a competitor.” In many core German industries, Chinese manufacturers are gaining more and more ground.
“We prepared an export analysis last year when we looked at the German mechanical engineering, automotive, chemical and electronics sectors over a 20-year period,” Otte reports. “In all these core sectors, China has caught up incredibly as an exporter worldwide and is becoming a leading market in some cases.” To keep up with the competition, many German companies are trying to adapt their products to local conditions and get them faster on the Chinese market.
Despite her knowledge, Otte feels that the term “expert” does not apply to her. The beauty of her work is that she is always learning something new, she says. That is why she prefers to call herself an “observer”. Outside of work, Otte spends a lot of time with her husband and two children. To unwind, she enjoys swimming, and playing the piano – and she is currently learning to play the erhu (二胡), a traditional Chinese stringed instrument. Dayan Djajadisastra
