Companies and organizations in Germany and Shenzhen teamed up to pursue future-oriented technologies at the Sino-German Economic Forum on Wednesday in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.

The forum promoted 128 projects seeking cooperation and witnessed the signing of five key projects, covering the fields of software information, vocational education, additive manufacturing and new energy.

It was the first large-scale offline Sino-German economic exchange event held in the last three years due to COVID-19. Participating companies will also visit local leading enterprises in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area after the forum.

Volker Treier, chief executive of Foreign Trade and member of the Executive Board at the Association of German Chamber of Industry and Commerce, said that there is still significant potential for cooperation between China and Germany.

"Shenzhen has been playing a key role in facilitating foreign trade and innovation. German large and medium-sized enterprises have consistently highly praised the investment environment in Shenzhen," he said.

Huang Hongsheng, founder of Chinese house appliance maker Skyworth Group, said the Group has signed a contract with a German company to cooperate in the photovoltaic supply chain and a photovoltaic project will be launched in Germany this year. He added they will also increase cooperation with German partners in the new energy vehicle sector.

Shenzhen Institute of Technology and Christiani, a German technical training group, have agreed to collaborate extensively within German dual-structure talent training systems and certification examinations, as well as Sino-German vocational education. It is expected that in the next three years, more than 1,000 international, innovative, skilled and technical talents will be trained in Shenzhen.

"Germany is Shenzhen's largest trading partner in Europe. In 2022, Shenzhen's total import and export to Germany reached $12.9 billion (88.8 billion yuan), an increase of 7.4 percent. This growth rate, even under the circumstances of the pandemic last year, reflects the deepening economic and trade relations between the two sides," said Qin Weizhong, mayor of Shenzhen.

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