In the first SGC – Roundtable in 2020 Stefan Messer, CEO of the Messer Group, delivered a presentation on ‘Messer China – An Extraordinary Success Story’ on January 14 at Frankfurt School. He starts by explaining how the China-business of Messer fits into the overall development of the Messer Group that is already active in about 30 countries. Actually, industry gas, the main product of Messer, fits very much with the needs of China’s economic development and can be used in a variety of industries and businesses. After the launch of a first corporate office in China in 1995, Messer developed a variety of branches and eventually set up its own company, Messer China Ltd., in 2008. Since then Messer China has grown fast and set up several factories, especially in the southeast of the country; most of them are stand-alone some are joint ventures. Asked in the discussion what have been the success factors of Messer China, Stefan Messer named especially the high quality of the products, the security standards in the factories as well as the strong diversification of the buyers of industrial gas. Messer China is highly profitable. Part of the profit is used for further expansion in China; the other one is repatriated to Germany. Overall, Stefan Messer is very positive about the business development in China and Messer Griesheim a template for the successful business of German companies in China.

Around 40 participants joined the first roundtable of the Sino-German Center at Frankfurt School on December 9th. Jochen Metzger, Director of Payments and Settlements at Deutsche Bundesbank and Dr. Stephan Bredt, Director General Economic Sector at the Economic Ministry of Hessen, addressed the introductory statements. Jochen Metzger stressed especially the importance of new developments in the world of central banks like, for instance, the introduction of digital currencies, a field in which the Chinese Central Bank, People’s Bank of China, is in fact a frontrunner. Dr. Bredt focussed on the role of central banks for sustainable and green finance and pointed out the strong interest of the government of Hessen to develop Frankfurt further on as a RMB-hub.

Statements have been also given by Dingxin Gao, chief representative of PBoC in Frankfurt and Dr. Han Chen, Co-CEO of CEINEX. Whereas Mr Gao confirmed that PBoC is strongly researching in the field of digital central bank money, Dr. Chen stressed the development of a Shanghai – Frankfurt stock connect. All speakers confirmed the need to accelerate the Sino-German Finance cooperation in the future and the importance of the Sino-German Center for this development.

Journey on paper: China in the eyes of Europeans in the past 400 years
– A book collector’s story

Dr. Han Chen, Co-CEO of CEINEX, the joint venture established by Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE), Deutsche Börse Group (DBAG), and China Financial Futures Exchange (CFFEX), is a passionate book collector as well. He collects ancient books about China published in Europe in the final stage of the middle and the beginning of the modern age.

In November he delivered a presentation at Frankfurt School of Finance & Management about ‘China in the eyes of Europeans in the past 400 years’ based on his book collection. The event was jointly organised by the Sino-German Center at Frankfurt School and the Center for East-Asian Studies at J. W. Goethe University.  Dr Chen shows on the basis of selected books from his collection the changing European perspectives on China. It seems that the Europeans look first up to the Chinese culture and achievements but changed this perspective gradually over time ending up with a poor judgement of I

In the lively and interesting discussion after the presentation, another important point despite the changing perspective of Europeans about China has been discovered. It seems that the mutual know-how and understanding about each other has turned around. Whereas in the past Europeans knew a lot about China, today Chinese experts know more about Europe than Europeans about China. In any case, the event shows again that understanding history can help to better promote exchanges and cooperation between Europe and China.