BayernLB to open 2nd Mittelstand centre in China
Expansive space and services for German companies
Munich/Taicang – BayernLB is gearing up for its second Mittelstand centre in China. Taicang’s Dongting Plaza will be the venue, with five storeys of office space and wide-ranging services available to German Mittelstand companies looking to enter a promising Chinese market. The up-and-coming city of Taicang in Jiangsu Province is around 50 kilometres northwest of Shanghai.
Bavarian State Minister of Finance Dr Markus Söder, representing the Bank’s majority owner, signed the purchase contract in Taicang today. “Go East – that is the motto of the Bavarian Mittelstand. The new German Centre will give these Bavarian and German companies a home in China”, remarked Dr Söder at the signing ceremony.
“As the Bavarian bank for the German economy, we make a point of helping Mittelstand companies enter the Chinese market swiftly and unbureaucratically. They benefit both from the contact the management has with the Chinese authorities and the communication pathways nurtured by our excellent German Centre network”, explained Dr Johannes-Jörg Riegler, BayernLB CEO.
In addition to multi-purpose office space, the new Mittelstand centre will offer extensive business centre services such as secretarial, translation and interpreting assistance. The German savings banks also stand to gain from BayernLB’s contacts in China as they can in this way provide their own Mittelstand customers with more services abroad.
The 8,500-sq.m. German Centre will be set up in Taicang not least because of the city’s logistic proximity to Shanghai. German companies are increasingly interested in locations that are close to such regional metropolitan areas as they enable them to keep especially staff and production costs down while remaining close to the customer. A good 200 German companies, mostly Mittelstand industrial businesses, are based in Taicang today.
The German Centre Taicang will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of the German Centre Shanghai, which in turn is owned by Bayerische Landesbank. Around USD 12 million is being invested for the purchase and construction of the versatile, modern premises and new business environment. BayernLB is actively pursuing its goal of serving German companies both at home and abroad.
About the German Centre Shanghai
BayernLB has been running the German Centre in Shanghai successfully for over ten years as a Mittelstand centre in China. The BayernLB subsidiary, wholly-owned with an investment of USD 70 million, has been located in a building of its own in the business and financial district of Pudong since 2005. Since its founding back in 1994, when it was located on the Tongji University campus, the German Centre has assisted over 200 small and medium-sized companies in entering the Chinese market. It currently has 120 firms from all sectors as tenants. Its modern offices, 59 comfortable apartments, recreational areas and wellness facilities are sprawled over some 30,000 square metres, 2,000 of which serving as multi-purpose space for conferences and general events. Numerous shops and restaurants occupy more than 6,000 square metres as well.