Aldi, BASF, Volkswagen
China remains the “place to be”. (Photos: BASF, Aldi-Süd, Bloomberg)
Regardless of the growing risks, German companies continue to invest heavily in China. According to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, investments rose by 21 percent in the first five months of the year compared to the same period last year.
The most recent examples: A few days ago, the chemical group BASF gave the go-ahead for the decisive phase in the construction of a Verbund site in southern China, which will cost ten billion euros. At the beginning of the week, the automotive supplier Hella announced that it would be expanding its production capacity with a new lighting plant in Changzhou near Shanghai. And the discounter Aldi wants to open hundreds of new stores in China.
At the same time, however, warnings against too strong a bond with China are increasing. “The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine shows the problems of economic dependencies on autocratic systems,” said Franziska Brantner, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Economics, the Handelsblatt. The Institute for the World Economy (IfW) also sees German companies on the way to a “dangerous dependency on the benevolence of the Chinese leadership”.
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