Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel & PRC President Xi Jinping – Picture by Xinhua.
6-7 September 2019, People’s Republic of China: German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel paid her 12th visit to China as head of government. The chancellor has visited various Chinese cities, and is known as one of the European political leaders that is best acquainted to China.
Merkel visited Wuhan, capital of Hubei province and a key hub for the Yangtze River Economic Belt’s development. President Xi Jinping welcomed German participation in the building of the economic belt, in a meeting with Merkel in Beijing held on 6 September.
Merkel mentioned during her visit that Germany is glad to have benefited from China’s further opening-up policy, and it is willing to continue expanding investment in China.
The PRC and Germany established diplomatic relations in 1972. Since that time their partnership has evolved considerably covering trade, investment, tourism and student exchanges: China is Germany’s largest trading partner with bilateral trade reaching 165 billion EUR in 2018. About 30 freight trains from China arrive at Duisburg’s inland port weekly. There are about 30,000 German experts in China and 8,200 German students as well.
About 643,700 Germans visited China in 2018, and Germany is China’s largest source of travelers from the EU.
For further information:
Embassy of the PRC to Germany (HE Ambassador Wu Ken): http://www.china-botschaft.de/det/dszl/dsjl/
