OWWF at the conference Intelligent Manufacturing Shenzhen / Munich

On 24 September 2018, OWWF Board Member and China Speaker Bill Holler opened the conference between Shenzhen Baoan and Munich.

High-ranking representatives of the government of Shenzhen Baoan were represented in Munich by a business delegation to draw attention to this special location in China.

The city of Shenzhen, 30 years ago an insignificant fishing village with Chinese production of cheap mass-produced goods, has since developed into China's Silicon Valley. The Baoan district is one of the hundred strongest industrial districts and regions in China.

With the advent of the "Industry 4.0" age, Baoan has tackled and actively promoted promising industries such as intelligent equipment at an early stage; a dominant industrial cluster has already formed in areas such as robots, portable devices and intelligent systems, and there is great demand and market for technical innovations in intelligent manufacturing. Baoan and Germany have good prospects for future cooperation in industries such as intelligent equipment manufacturing, biomedicine, and aerospace. Baoan can be a preferred location for Chinese-German cooperation in intelligent manufacturing.

In his speech, Bill Holler addressed the historical link between Bavaria and China. After all, in 1975 Prime Minister Franz-Josef Strauß was one of the first Western politicians to recognize China's importance as Germany's economic partner. Since then, these relations have developed fruitfully and now bear rich fruit for both sides. 
However, he also expressed his criticism of the problems caused by Chinese companies, which many medium-sized companies in Germany are suffering from. This includes product piracy, where a friend of his recently told him that his complete product catalogue exists on the Chinese market as a fake copy with a slightly changed company logo.

According to Bill Holler, respect for each other's peculiarities and cultural differences is a prerequisite for entering into successful long-term cooperations in China. Especially in the field of intelligent manufacturing (Industry 4.0), Germany has a special significance for China.

Experience has shown that the Chinese delegation was sympathetic to the restrictions imposed by the Oktoberfest, which coincidentally took place at the same time.