Branche: Asia

Germany is the largest European trading partner of the People's Republic of China. The main exports are chemical products, machinery, motor vehicles and electrical engineering. However, German companies are finding it difficult to gain access to the Chinese B2C-market. E-commerce, which has been expanded in recent years, can enable German companies to enter the Chinese custom- er market. The article presents the situation of e-commerce in China and shows relevant support offers of the platform operators, which, however, can lead to economic dependency. For German companies, it seems advantageous to deal with the principles of success of Chinese e-commerce in order to implement them in their traditional markets.

China’s economic and demographic change forces the country to take action in its health care system. AI, Big Data and Robotics play a vital role in bringing the quality of health care to a new level and the country to the politically desired world leadership in key technologies. The abundance of data, limited privacy laws, vast amounts of venture capital and strategic partnerships between AI-industry and the government have fueled the fast AI-development in China to which Germany and Europe have yet to find an answer.

In Germany, Big-Data is frequently associated with Industry 4.0. With regard to China, some publications focused upon the legal and ethical issues of the so-called social credit system, but offered little overview concerning the general aspects of Big-Data. This paper aims to deliver a more comprehensive outline of the Big-Data developments, which have been observed for the last seven years in China. In particular, the contribution delineates the application scenarios and governmental politics related to Big-Data and further deepens the insights by providing two concise case studies, one on mechanical engineering manufacturers and the other on Big-Data activities in the province of Guizhou. At the economic level, this article compares the recent Big-Data revenues in Germany and China.

Success factors that had long driven China’s economic boom have lost their legitimacy gradually. The emergence of the competitive indigenous technology houses in IT, telecommunications and software industries in the past two decades has made China’s industrial digitalisation feasible, which the nation would urgently need to base its further growth more on technology and innovation. Consequently, China’s economic performance would become more solid and sustainable. Internet+ predicts the general direction of digitalisation in China’s industries and represents the concept that is currently enthusiastically debated by the economists, politicians and in the media. The integration of information technology with other manufacturing industries is particularly emphasised in this context. The article examines the background and the terminology, takes a look at the market model and some technical issues of Internet+. A case study accompanies the “excursion” to China, in order to give ...

Baden-Wuerttemberg and Suzhou Industrial Park are innovative and economically powerful regions in Germany and China, respectively. Thus, cooperation between companies from these regions offers promising synergy potentials. In order to identify industrial synergies, guideline oriented interviews have been conducted with 25 experts from Baden-Wuerttemberg and the Jiangsu province. Especially Chinese companies pursue strong collaboration in order to address future technology fields such as automation technology as well as environmental technology.

The enormous drive and steady economic growth make India one of the largest future markets for German companies. Besides China, India is the most populous country in the world and about ten times larger than Germany. Even in times of crisis, India showed a constant growth rate. A key requirement for a stable economic and social development is sustainable energy supply. The Indian government is committed to renewable energy resources as they deliver a contribution for climate and environmental protection - besides economic and social evolution. To set up capacities of renewable energy, India depends on the support of foreign companies. This offers great market opportunities for German enterprises as they are appreciated as worldwide technology leaders.

After three years of living in one of China’s booming cities, the answer seems easy: In China! Even during the crisis in 2009 construction was ongoing in Dalian: Roads, apartments, plants. At the same time in Europe workers were dismissed and factories closed. That is why a discussion of the advantages of a location seems unreasonable at this point. The decision has already been taken by companies. The remaining question is: Where to go from here? And again the answer seems easy.

The regional and economical policies of the Chinese government in the past few decades have led to marked regional economic imbalances. In order to implement initiative in China successfully, a valid location planning is a great challenge for foreign logistics companies. They need different qualitative and quantitative criteria for location decision. In this article was showed an overview of the major logistics hubs in China and analyzed their characteristics and location quality from the perspective of the western logistics companies.

Immediately after independence the Congress regime under Prime Minister Nehru embarked upon a program of state controlled industrialisation. Over three decades the agrarian sector and the peasant cases of India were neglected by the Congress High Command and the Indian development planners. This Indian “middle path” to industrial development not only led to the emergence of new and rebellious peasant parties it also resulted in a modest, in a “Hindu rate of growth” of some three percent. In addition this policy of non-alignment and this pursuit of “middle path” between the west and the soviet bloc led to increased political and economic isolation. It was finally at the beginning of the 1970th that the government of India under Indira Gandhi constructed a new political alignment and economic exchange system with the Soviet Union. India gained Soviet industrial and military technology and a market for its products - which could not have been sold on the world market. With the ...

The shift of production capacities from high-cost countries to India offers new business opportunities, but also new challenges. As shown by the example of the leather industry, sourcing from India is often associated with versatile risks. Risks are especially due to transcultural misunderstandings, lacking adherence to delivery dates, low quality standards, residues of harmful substances in products as well as problematic working conditions in Indian factories and high levels of environmental pollution. German companies which are planning to source finished or unfinished goods from India should consider sustainable risk mitigation strategies right from the start in order to avoid unpleasant surprises. Comprehensive coordination of the supply chain and the installation of effective control mechanisms may prove necessary to fully exploit the business opportunities provided by Indian suppliers. However, a thorough coordination of the supply chain will not only reduce individual business ...