German industry interested in China's smart manufacturing strategy

German industry of information technology and telecommunication was interested in China's new strategy to develop smart manufacturing and would like to seek opportunities to cooperate, said a German industry representative on Friday.

The Chinese government announced on Thursday to implement the "Made in China 2025" strategy and develop "Internet Plus" action plan with an aim to seek innovation driven development, apply smart technologies, integrate the mobile Internet, cloud computing, big data, and the Internet of Things with modern manufacturing, and to upgrade China from a manufacturer of quantity to one of quality.

Wolfgang Dorst, the head of Department "Industrie 4.0" in German ICT industry association BITKOM, told Xinhua in an interview that German industry was eager to know more about new trends in Chinese manufacturing sector and was willing to seek more cooperation opportunities.

"It (Chinese smart manufacturing) is both challenge and opportunity," Dorst said, added that despite its strong basis in manufacturing and IT, Germany needed a globalized value chain to win the competition in the fourth industrial revolution.

"A single national state can be ahead but a single national state cannot do it by himself," he said, "The international network of cooperation is so tight that German companies have to work with Chinese companies and vice versa."

Germany raised the concept "Industrie 4.0" and set it as one of the country's 10 "future projects" in 2010. In a weekly podcast in February, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany is seeking to set a global standard for "Industrie 4.0".

According to Dorst, the concept not only relates to manufacturing but also to all the services based on the Internet. Thus, a competition in the future would also be a competition in services, software, connectivity, broadband and robustness of network.

Citing the visit of Miao Wei, Chinese Minister of Industry and Information Technology, to BITKOM last October, Dorst said the information exchange between China and Germany on this topic has started, but the German side wishes to get chances to be "more engaged" in the cooperation.

He added that he would visit CeBIT 2015, the world's biggest IT trade fair where China would be the partnership country this year, in Hanover next week, and to get more ideas about China's development in this field.