Ambassador Wu Ken & Premier Laschet – Picture by Land, NRW
Thursday, 12 September 2019, Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia: Premier Armin Laschet received the new Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China in Berlin, Wu Ken, for his inaugural visit to the State Chancellery in Düsseldorf. The meeting focused on the cooperation between North Rhine-Westphalia and China in the fields of business, science and culture as well as the current situation in Hong Kong.
Premier Armin Laschet: “The People’s Republic of China is a close and important partner for our state. North Rhine-Westphalia is home to the largest Chinese community in Germany and, with more than a third of Chinese companies in Germany, is the centre of German-Chinese trade relations. We also want to intensify our cooperation beyond the economic sphere. The major challenges of our time, such as climate change, require multilateral solutions and international cooperation. Climate policy must therefore also be an integral part of foreign policy. Such a climate foreign policy is the right way to jointly develop sustainable and constructive solutions that go beyond the national perspective”.
With a trade volume of around 40 billion euros, the People’s Republic of China is the second largest trading partner for North Rhine-Westphalia after The Netherlands. For Chinese companies, North Rhine-Westphalia has developed into the most important industrial location in Germany. Since 2013, the number of Chinese company branches has more than ninefold increased to over 1,100 companies with around 10,000 employees. Global groups such as the telecommunications supplier Huawei in Düsseldorf, the construction machinery group XCMG in Krefeld or the industry partner Sany in Cologne have their European headquarters in North Rhine-Westphalia.
North Rhine-Westphalia also has a long tradition of friendly relations with the three Chinese provinces of Jiangsu, Shanxi and Sichuan. In 2018, the 30th anniversary of the partnerships with Jiangsu and Sichuan was celebrated. Currently, 20 cities in North Rhine-Westphalia maintain connections with Chinese cities, including China: Cologne-Beijing, Bonn-Chengdu or Essen-Changzhou. With currently more than 200 cooperations between North Rhine-Westphalian and Chinese universities, North Rhine-Westphalia is the leader in Germany-wide comparison.
The cooperation focuses on engineering and economics. Around 9,000 students from the People’s Republic of China are currently studying at universities in North Rhine-Westphalia. This makes them the second largest group of non-German students. Currently, more than 50 North Rhine-Westphalian schools maintain contacts with a Chinese school. These include grammar schools, vocational colleges, comprehensive schools, secondary schools and primary schools.
The Chinese Consul General in Düsseldorf, Feng Haiyang, also took part in the meeting in the State Chancellery.
For further information
Government of NRW: https://www.land.nrw/de/pressemitteilung/ministerpraesident-armin-laschet-trifft-den-neuen-botschafter-der-volksrepublik
Embassy of the PRC to Germany (HE Ambassador Wu Ken): http://www.china-botschaft.de/det/dszl/dsjl/
Consulate General of the PRC in Düsseldorf: http://dusseldorf.china-consulate.org/det/
