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with 110 companies opening their branches in Germany 42 . China’s investments
in Germany are still much smaller, amounting to €1.3 billion in April 2011. Also
the number of Chinese companies operating on the German market (900) is
much lower than the number of German companies in China. China is interested
mainly in German technologies, and so far it has been waiting for
a good moment to purchase companies from the automotive, computer, financial
and renewable energy sectors. In the period preceding the 2009 crisis
surge, the Chinese concern Sany invested €100 million in Germany with the
aim of establishing a research and development centre there. Chinese companies
have treated the crisis as an opportunity to purchase German companies
active in the sectors they were interested in, and the estimated value of German
companies fell considerably. In 2011 Lenovo, China’s largest manufacturer
of digital devices, announced its acquisition of the German electronics producer
Medion. In the same year Chinese concerns acquired two sub-contractors
of the automotive companies Saargummi and Preh. In January 2012 Sany
announced its decision to acquire the German pump producer Putzmeister
in a transaction worth €360 million 43 . This came as a shock to German public
opinion because Putzmeister had been considered an example of a traditional
German business, a small family-owned company known as a leader in its specialist
market niche. Soon after that Sany announced further acquisition plans
in Germany. In 2012 a group of Chinese companies announced their acquisitions
of German businesses from the solar energy sector in which (as a result
of German government subsidy cuts) many companies have gone bankrupt.
German companies were among the main critics of the expansion of Chinese
solar energy businesses, claiming that by using price dumping, the Chinese
have pushed German producers out of the European market. In consequence,
the European Commission has imposed duties on Chinese solar installations
whose annual sales on the EU market has exceeded €20 billion. The German
government has officially criticised this step, fearing China’s retaliation. In the
end, the European Commission and China reached a consensus and agreed to
set a minimum price for solar modules: 56 cents per watt of energy. Chinese
companies could either join the agreement or accept a 37.2–67.9% duty on their
products.
PRACE OSW REPORT OSW 09/2012 11/2013
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http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/0,1518,821535,00.html
43
C. Bryant, Chinese Sany to acquire Putzmeister, Financial Times, 30 January 2012, http://
www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/7aecad0a-4a5e-11e1-a11e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz22NnV2Rp7
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