April 25, 2024 (EIRNS)—A Berlin “Table Media” webinar yesterday, comparing the industrial performance of Germany and China, featured Claudia Barkowsky, head of the Shanghai liaison of the German Machine Building Association (VDMA), giving a highly interesting insight into China’s machine-building sector. Noting that not only has Germany, but also the West in general has vastly underestimated China’s dynamic, she said that China’s machine-building capacity at present has already surpassed the combined capacities of Germany, Japan. and Italy. And the situation is even more advantageous for China, which generated more young engineers every year than those three Western states combined.
China’s rise comes as no surprise, because it invests much more in innovation than Western countries, Barkowsky pointed out. Whereas for Germany to deploy up to 40 engineers on a new R&D project is already a big thing, China may have as many as 400 engineers on a single project. China has continuously expanded its capacities in building standard machines in the past years, but it is now on the verge of becoming a serious competitor to the German special machine builders. In terms of standard machines, Chinese exports into the ASEAN countries are expanding massively, while German exports there are stagnating.
