Huawei's decade-long commitment in Europe

"In 2000, a French client asked my colleague 'Is there a bridge like this in China?' looking at a five-meter-long, three-meter-high bridge," Xu recalled, "my colleague was totally surprised and shocked by the ignorance of the then European society about China."

"In the first few years we almost got nowhere in some European countries as many people knew nothing about Chinese high-tech companies and believed China could only produce cheap products like costumes," Xu said.

"We strove to overcome all those misunderstanding and mistrust over the years, seeing the European market as our strategic priority and believing that continuous investment and technological strength would finally win over clients' respect and recognition," he said.

Things have changed since 2005 when Huawei's brand began to be widely recognized and sales boosted, Xu said.

Brighter future

Huawei's celebration of its entry into the European market in 2012 is accompanied with soaring sales of its products in the region. In northeastern Europe, Huawei scored a $1.5 billion sales revenue in 2011.

As more Chinese enterprises have followed Huawei's steps in the past few years, China phobia is losing ground because of boosted employment and their contributions to local economies.

According to a poll by the Forsa market-research company earlier this year, Germans who feel afraid of a rising China fell 10 percent to 30 percent, while 68 percent of respondents are willing to accept a growing China.

Another poll conducted among 1,000 German managers by Munich-based EAC, a management consulting firm, found that 70 percent of respondents expected China to become a global economic engine, while 67 percent of them believe there is no reason to be afraid of China's economic growth.

Meanwhile, federal and state governments also welcome Chinese investment as a force to improve their local economies. Commercial centers like Dusseldorf even have set up a special office to provide Chinese investors with consulting, registration, legal help and human resources.

Now, more than 1,300 Chinese enterprises have set up branches or representative offices in Germany, accounting for 2.8 percent of the total number of foreign investors in Europe's largest economy.

In recent years, Chinese enterprises have increasingly moved out of the traditional import and export trade and have tapped into the German market by setting up wholly-owned subsidiaries or holding subsidiaries, among other measures.

However, China's $1.73 billion investment still accounts for only 0.3 percent of total foreign investment in Germany, and less than 10 percent of total German investment in China, said Wu Hongbo, a former Chinese ambassador to Germany.

"The two-way investment is still imbalanced, leaving huge potential for Chinese enterprises to invest in Germany," Wu said.

The success stories in Germany prove that cooperation between Chinese and German enterprises can bring mutual benefit and yield win-win results, he added.

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