Organisational Meeting of the German-Chinese Working Group at the Federal Economics Ministry

China certainly offers not only unforeseen challenges, but also a very wide range of business opportunities. This is the reason why the German Federal Government, in particular the Federal Economics Ministry, has been working for years on intensifying the economic relations between the biotech sectors of the two nations. This was the background to a meeting of lobbyists from the biotech industry held in the middle of January at the invitation of the Economics Ministry, in order to discuss the continuation of the activities of the German-Chinese Biotechnology Working Group. The working group was set up on a bilateral basis in the summer of 2009 during a German-Chinese meeting in the provincial capital of Changsha.

The main aim of the most recent meeting of the working group was to decide on concrete topics for bilateral cooperation.

The new chairman of the working group on the German side is Albrecht Läufer, Managing Director of Corvay GmbH, who will also represent the interests of innovative biotech small and medium-sized companies on behalf of BIO Deutschland.

It is expected that the working group will hold a meeting with its Chinese partners during the fourth China Bioindustry Convention, which will take place from 18 - 20 June in Jinan, Shandong Province. At this meeting, the working group, with the support of the Economics Ministry, aims to identify possible obstacles to the achievement or the continuation of existing cooperation opportunities and to produce options for resolving them.

A preliminary meeting on details of the individual cooperation projects is to be held at the Economics Ministry on 25 March. Companies are welcome to register German-Chinese projects at BIO Deutschland's office (tel.: +49(0)30-3450593-30, e-mail: serrano@biodeutschland.org) so that future or existing cooperation with Chinese partners can be furthered and concrete trade relations can be developed in the course of this meeting.