Rural Germany's Chinese Business Hub: Business center for entrepreneurs boost local economy

World
Europe

03:14

Rural Germany is not a place you would expect to find many Chinese businesses. But our correspondent Natalie Carney found one village where the Chinese population almost outnumbers the locals, 175 kilometers southwest of Frankfurt.

Six years ago, twelve Chinese businessmen invested nearly 150,000 US Dollars each in the tiny central German village of Hoppstädten-Weiersbach. Many thought they were crazy! Today, this rural area has grown into a thriving community of three hundred small and medium-sized German registered Chinese firms thanks to the forward thinking of one successful Chinese businesswoman.

ANDREAS SCHOLZ CO-CEO OF OAK GARDEN "So then she had the idea, what's good for my business could also be good for other Chinese. And then the idea comes step by step up to for her to settle down a business center for Chinese entrepreneurs who can come to Germany and set up their business here."

Scholz and his business partner chose this rather remote location because of the old US army barracks left vacant here. The partners bought and transformed them into residential apartments for potential Chinese investors. It worked.

ANDREAS SCHOLZ CO-CEO OF OAK GARDEN "Basically we are here in the middle of beautiful nature, but still, we have only 1 and a half hours to Frankfurt, Frankfurt airport is very close. Also, it's like that the prices for real estate are quite cheap."

Oak Garden also offers office space, networking and helps navigate Germany's somewhat complicated bureaucracy and culture, right down to grocery shopping. Shenzhen based BGI is one of the world's leading genome sequencing centers and has had their European headquarters in Oak Garden for nearly two years. While strong in research, BGI wanted to boost their business by setting up in Germany.

WANG "WILL" GEE EUROPEAN MANAGER OF BGI "Germany was the center of Europe. In here the government helps us a lot to connect us with local hospitals and universities, especially in our area."

Business is also developed from passion here. Hao Weng played football in China but always admired the talents of German players. So he now organizes joint Chinese German youth soccer tournaments from Hoppstädten-Weiersbach.

HAO WENG CEO OF NET2 HUADE "The German Business Association thinks highly of the soccer project so with the strong support of Oak Garden, I started this project."

Cultural exchange and education are also big parts of this initiative.

NATALIE CARNEY HOPPSTADTEN-WEIERSBACH, GERMANY "Oak Gardens has seen a growing interest in their project since the first Chinese investor moved in in 2012 that they're constructing 12 new buildings over the next five to seven years to accommodate for another 500 investors and their families."

The local government says the development has provided an important boost to the local German economy.

MICHAEL DIETZ GOVERNMENT REP. FOR TRADE, INDUSTRY & TOURISM "They invested round about 30 million euros and this money went directly to craftsman, to the industry into this region to all the people. These 1000 Chinese people need cars, they need furniture, they need food, they need clothes, everything and this helps definitely the region."

German businesses are also benefiting from Oak Garden's network with Chinese investment opportunities, having long been a challenge due to Chinese regulations. Natalie Carney, CGTN, Hoppstädten-Weiersbach.