Germany’s Top Executives to Visit China With Chancellor Scholz
- Heads of BioNTech, Siemens will also accompany chancellor
By Bloomberg News
October 28, 2022 at 5:49 AM EDT
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will lead a delegation of senior business leaders to China next week, including the chief executive officers of Adidas AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Siemens AG, vaccine maker BioNTech SE and Volkswagen AG, according to people familiar with the matter.
Also on the list are the CEOs of BASF SE, Bayer AG, BMW AG, pharmaceuticals group Merck KGaA and Wacker Chemie AG, among others, the people said, asking not to be identified because the details of the trip are private. Bloomberg News previously reported VW CEO Oliver Blume will join the delegation.
Blume said on an earnings call Friday that it is “important to have communication between the countries, to listen to the ideas and perspectives” on both sides.
Representatives from BMW, BioNTech, Siemens, Bayer and Adidas declined to comment. Representatives from BASF didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
A spokesperson from Deutsche Bank confirmed CEO Christian Sewing’s attendance; Wacker couldn’t immediately comment. Merck also confirmed Belen Garijo’s participation, adding that the company, which employs around 4,600 people in China, is conscious of the current geopolitical challenges and of the need for direct and constructive dialog.
Scholz’s chief spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said he couldn’t confirm any business delegation members and declined to comment further.
The whistle-stop China tour is scheduled to kick off Nov. 3 and be done by the end of Nov. 4, with delegates staying just one day in Beijing and not overnight, one of the people said. Attendees will also be subject to the nation’s still stringent Covid protocols, which will necessitate remaining in a bubble-like environment so as to ensure no contact is made with the outside public.
For the German government, the trip is a delicate balancing act, meant to reinforce business ties but also broach the subject of human rights violations, Bloomberg reported earlier this month. Berlin is working to hone a new national strategy with regards to China that aims to ensure less of a reliance on the world’s second-largest economy. Germany is also seeking to diversify its supply chains and enhance domestic security.
China was Germany’s biggest trading partner in 2021, with goods valued at 246 billion euros ($245 billion) traded between the two nations last year. German companies have a significant presence in China, with most of the country’s automakers in joint ventures with Chinese firms to make vehicles for the world’s biggest car market.
The brisk visit will mark Scholz’s first to China since he took office in December. It will also be one of the first sizable business delegations to visit China since the start of the pandemic, with the country’s borders still effectively closed as it persists with trying to suppress Covid, an approach long abandoned by other countries in the region.
The inclusion of BioNTech’s boss in the group comes as investors and China watchers speculate about how long Beijing will persist with its disruptive Covid Zero policy of lockdowns, mass testing and mandatory quarantines. To reopen to the world without an onslaught of cases and deaths, China needs to bolster its vaccination rate, particularly among the elderly. The country has only rolled out less effective, domestic shots, with a submission to approve BioNTech’s blockbuster mRNA vaccine with Pfizer Inc. in limbo.
The visit marks the start of a busy period of international trips for key German executives. Singapore will host another substantial German business delegation on Nov. 13-14 and then there’s the Group of 20 leaders summit in Bali in Indonesia on Nov. 15-16. The months-long conflict in Ukraine will be high on the agenda in both Beijing and Bali, Bloomberg reported earlier.
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