Germany's latest showcase investment in China is a 33,000 square metre Pudong office complex offering home country investors a complete do-it-yourself investment kit. The German Centre provides small and medium-sized companies from Europe's largest economy with office space, showrooms, legal advice, financing, travel services and a pretzel bakery.
As a symbol of Sino-German relations, Deutschland's Pudong outpost is doubly - and paradoxically - appropriate.
Its shiny new surfaces symbolise the warm and cordial bilateral relationship on display during President Hu Jintao's recent trip to Germany which facilitated US$1.5 billion worth of business deals including the purchase of 60 high-speed trains from Siemens.
According to National People's Congress chairman Wu Bangguo, Sino-German relations are at 'their best point in history'. His optimism is reflected by the two nations' goal - articulated last year - to double bilateral trade (US$54.1 billion last year) by 2010.
On the inside, however, the German Centre was only 30 per cent occupied when it opened two weeks ago. Viewed from this perspective, it is a reminder that many German companies are finding China a hard slog.
In the first six months of this year, Germany's exports to China fell 12.7 per cent even as the mainland's imports grew 14 per cent overall. The Sturm und Drang is keenly felt by some of the industrial giant's leading corporate champions.
