Companies from China use "Han Bao" as a hub

More than 550 Chinese companies are based in Hamburg, more than anywhere else in Europe. The Hanseatic city is popular as a logistics hub and gets new strategic importance through the New Silk Road.

Button eyes and bold ears are well received by Chinese people. That's why Dehua Touristic has a lama head as logo. "This is lively and funny," explains Yong Jin, main owner of the tour operator in the Spitalerstraße. The civil engineer founded the company more than 20 years ago with her husband and another Chinese managing director. Meanwhile, Dehua Touristic employs 30 people at the Hamburg headquarters, who organize bus trips for more than 10,000 Chinese tourists through Germany and Europe each year. In addition, well over 400 closed tourist and business travel groups as well as about 30,000 passengers. "From the very beginning, the Chamber of Commerce gave us great support," says Jin.

This is also what Xiaohui Zhu, managing director of Caissa Touristic, thinks. The travel company with more than 3000 employees worldwide has been based in Hamburg for 25 years. Zhu appreciates the regular networking and information events, consultations and recommendations of the Chamber of Commerce. "Especially in the early days when Caissa was founded, we benefited greatly," she says.

At the China Info Forum, Chinese entrepreneurs from northern Germany meet every three months in the Chambers of Commerce. Two hours, two topics, two speakers. "The Chinese company representatives get important information, for example, on tax, customs or legal issues such as the data protection regulation," said Lisa Gathen, China Secretary in the International Division of the Chamber of Commerce. The special feature: "We are the only IHK in Germany to offer this type of event in Chinese."

Han Bao, the "castle of the Chinese", as the Hanseatic city is called in Chinese, occupies the top spot in Europe with more than 550 companies from the People's Republic. "In the beginning, it was primarily state-owned groups such as the Shanghai steel group Baosteel or the Beijing container shipping company China Cosco Shipping Corporation," says Lars Anke, head of the Hamburg Liaison Office in Shanghai, the official representative office of the China Chamber of Commerce. In the meantime, "Chinese private companies, also from the production and technology sector" were interested in Hamburg. According to Stefan Matz of Hamburg Invest, the agency for settlements and investments in the Hanseatic city, every year there are 20 to 25 newcomers from China. Many of the newly established companies make Hamburg their logistics hub for the whole of Europe, because the Hanseatic city is also an important port and a major hub for rail links with China. "Hamburg often serves as a gateway to opening up markets in Southern, Central and Eastern Europe," says Anke.

The logistics service provider Changjiu Logistics, which specializes in the automotive industry, also has more than 20 employees. "We were in the right place at the right time," says CEO Jixiong Qin. Because the branch was founded when China's initiative for the New Silk Road started with billions of investments in an intercontinental trade and infrastructure network. Changjiu Logistics transports vehicles as sea freight from Hamburg to Tianjin and since 2015 also offers rail transport for components between Harbin and Hamburg. According to Hafen Hamburg Marketing, there are a total of 235 container train connections between Hamburg and China this year, just under a quarter more than in 2017.

From October, Changjiu Logistics intends to start an additional trading center in Grosse Elbstrasse. The idea: "We offer companies from China a platform for their services in Europe. The resulting international trade network is to promote our logistics business and vice versa, "explains Trade Center Manager Wella Cao.

Also the world market leader for container bridges, ZPMC, has plans. "In 2015, we started to build Hamburg as our European procurement and logistics center. In the coming years, we want to develop our European innovation and finance center here, "announces Xing Chao Chen, Deputy Managing Director of ZPMC Germany.

"HHLA has ordered five more gantry cranes for the Burchardkai, which will be delivered in the third quarter of 2019," says Chen. In addition, ZPMC Germany and the parent company China Communications Construction Company won the ideas competition of the Hamburg Port Authority for the port area Steinwerder-Süd. The design for an automated container terminal inlogistics park convinced the jury. The Chamber of Commerce in its latest issue paper on the future of the Port of Hamburg called on the HPA to define and publish the criteria and award the space according to it. Chinese company logos will probably become more commonplace in Hamburg.

Source: Chamber of Commerce Hamburg