The Hunan Department of Commerce recently issued a workplan for attracting investment from and enhancing cooperation with Germany in 2025.

The workplan centers on Hunan's industrial foundation and unique resource advantages. With the leading enterprises as a driving force, and aiming to attract small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to establish headquarters in Hunan, the workplan aims to promote targeted investment attraction for the Germany-linked industrial chains, and to further deepen economic and trade collaboration with Germany.

According to the workplan, priority will be given to six major industrial chains—construction machinery, automobile manufacturing, electronic information, modern petrochemicals, biomedicine, and advanced steel materials. Efforts will be made to dovetail with the "hidden champions" enterprises and specialized and innovative firms in Germany, to boost coordinated development of the upstream and downstream industrial sectors and to ultimately foster internationally competitive industrial clusters.

In construction machinery industrial chain, for example, the workplan focuses on key areas such as intelligent control technologies, high-end hydraulic components, and transmission systems. This will encourage the construction machinery enterprises in the Xiangjiang New Area and the Changsha Economic and Technological Development Zone to collaborate with the "hidden champion" enterprises in Germany such as ifm electronic. Moreover, the workplan aims to facilitate the upgrading of construction machinery products by attracting key component manufacturers and  production-supporting service enterprises in such sectors as industrial design.

As for the automobile manufacturing industrial chain, the workplan focuses on the new energy vehicles (NEVs) sector, inviting German firms specializing in battery technologies, autonomous driving, and lightweight materials to start up or make investment. Priority will be given to capacity expansion of the Xiangtan Base and upgrading of the Changsha R&D Center of Schaeffler, as well as construction of Bosch's Second Asia-Pacific R&D Center in Changsha and technological renovation of its production lines.

An increasing number of German enterprises have started up business or invested in Hunan in recent years. 37 German enterprises have now set up branches or made investment in Hunan, including Bosch, Metro, and Volkswagen.

This article is from the Hunan Provincial Government www.enghunan.gov.cn.

Translator: Pang Yuehui

Chinese source: hunan.gov.cn