Germany 'key target' for Chinese IT firms

China and Germany will deepen cooperation in technology innovation, manufacturing and finance, Vice-Premier Ma Kai and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said during a meeting on Sunday.

As a part of the two countries' cooperation in innovation, the leaders attended the digital world's most important event, CeBIT's opening ceremony, in Hanover after their meeting.

During the ceremony, a videotaped speech by Premier Li Keqiang was played. He said that the two countries have strong cooperation potential in the digital industry and China is willing to work with Germany to further develop the innovation industry partnership.

Merkel said she is very optimistic about the cooperation with China and considers that China's competitiveness is very high in the digital era. She said Germany will treat China as an important partner in the field of digital technology research and development, adding that this is "a very good time" for the two countries to build the partnership.

China has more than 600 information technology enterprises attending the exhibition, a record.

"China and Germany have many common points in information technology development, and the partnership is the best example of cooperation in terms of China's IT development in Europe and worldwide," said Chen Wei, director-general of the department of software and information service of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

At the fair, many Chinese IT leaders introduced new products and services to Germany, such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Sugon Information Industry Co Ltd and TCL Corp.

"Chinese IT enterprises' presence at CeBIT has improved in the past 10 years," said Xie Junshi, vice-president of ZTE Corp, which has attended CeBit since 2004. He said that the further digitalization of Europe will provide Chinese companies with many opportunities.

It was the first time for Chinese TV giant TCL to attend this event. George Guo, senior vice-president of the company, said that the German market will be its emphasis in Europe this year.

"Besides our cellphone and TV sets, we are bringing our smart home appliances to CeBIT, in order to extend our business to more areas such as cloud computing," he said.

Chen said: "The Chinese government will fully support IT companies to explore overseas markets, and it has also called for more technology exports to China.

"The experience foreign companies have gained in the Chinese market can be applied by Chinese firms to the global market."