YINCHUAN, April 4 (Xinhua) -- Despite having visited Yinchuan, the capital city of northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region, several times, Philipp Prang, the commercial director of the German company Big Dutchman China, remains "very interested in this modern city."
"We have already established good cooperation with some agricultural companies in Ningxia and also want to make new friends and collaborate with more Chinese agricultural enterprises," said Prang.
Established in 1938, Big Dutchman is one of the world's largest suppliers of feeding systems and housing equipment for pig and poultry production.
After some 30 years of development in China, the company's customers and suppliers have grown across the country, and sales branches have been set up in many Chinese cities, such as Guangzhou and Chengdu.
"The continuous expansion of China's opening up gives us confidence in the Chinese market. In the future, we will further deepen cooperation with various regions in China, promoting rural revitalization and sustainable agricultural development," said Prang.
Big Dutchman is one of the German companies that are optimistic about the prospects of the Chinese market.
"We believe Ningxia is a very open province with a solid foundation for cooperation with Germany. It places great emphasis on the elderly care industry, and therefore, we have great confidence in its development," said Zhang Xin, chief development officer of RENAFAN (Beijing) Advisory Services Limited.
As a leading German institution engaged in medical and nursing services for the elderly, RENAFAN has successfully operated 24 elderly care institution projects in China.
During the China (Ningxia)-German Week for Friendship and Cooperation held in February in Yinchuan, cooperation agreements of 19 projects were inked between companies from Germany and Ningxia.
The projects, worth about 157 million yuan (about 22.13 million U.S. dollars), range from elderly care services and equipment manufacturing to education and culture.
"We have been impressed by the huge variety of potential business cooperation between German and Chinese companies in the area of agriculture," said Susanne Rademacher, a member of the board of directors of the German Chamber of Commerce, at the event.
German direct investment in China increased by 4.3 percent to a record high of 11.9 billion euros last year, accounting for over 10 percent of the country's overall investment abroad, according to an exclusive analysis from the IW institute based on official data from Germany's central bank.
"China is a crucial market. We believe that only through mutual cooperation can the people of China and Germany progress together," said Tohermes Yves, managing director of Germany's ADT Project Consulting GmbH.