Room for growth: the economic significance of Chinese
direct investment in Germany
The high growth rates of Chinese investment in Germany
suggest China’ s growing economic importance as a source
of investment capital.
The economic effects of this devel –
opment are still minimal due to the currently lowinvest-
ment volume, which, however, is slowly but steadily on
the rise. This can be seen in important key indicators of
Chinese companies operating in Germany, including their
absolute number, their annual turnover, and their number
of employees.
The German Federal Bank (2016) reported 15, 818 foreign
companies operating in Germany in 2014 with a total of
approx. 2. 9 million employees and an annual turnover of
approx. €1. 496 trillion, but these statistics only considered
companies with total assets of more than €3 million. Of
these, 82 companies (0. 5 %) were Chinese-owned. These
82 companies had approx. 8, 000 employees (0. 3%) and a
turnover of €2. 9 billion (0. 2%of the total). Compared to
2004, both the number of Chinese-owned companies in
Germany as well as their turnover have increased almost
by factor five. The number of people they employ has in-
creased more than eight times. Nevertheless,
Chinese companies have been present in Germany for a
much shorter time span than the most important inves-
tors in Germany.
Therefore, they have also created much
fewer jobs. There is no systematic data available about the
number of jobs that could eventually be lost due to Chinese
takeovers (Jungbluth 2013: 63).
EU Forecast
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