Chinese professionals make their mark in Germany

On a recent Friday, a group of Chinese lawyers, auditors, managers and consultants, armed with business cards, schmoozed on a terrace overlooking a skyline of glass towers. The wine flowed, the hors d'oeuvres circulated and the seeds of potentially valuable relationships were planted.

The faces in the crowd included representatives from the audit, accounting and tax advisory firm Falk & Co, mergers and acquisitions advisers Keller & Coll, and insurer Ergo. They had gathered for talks on buying insurance, setting up limited companies and hiring staff. The event was organised by Steinbeis Consulting Centre China and the law firm Noerr.

Yet this scene did not play out in Shanghai, Hong Kong or Beijing. The location was an office in Frankfurt at No1 Boersenstrasse, next to the city's beating heart, the stock exchange, where securities have been traded for over 130 years - and where 23 mainland and Hong Kong companies have listed since 2007.

As Chinese firms acquire or merge with German ones or establish branches in the country, and as German firms hire staff from China to cater to that country's market, the number of Chinese white-collar workers in major German cities has grown. This is especially so in Frankfurt, Dusseldorf and Hamburg, respectively the country's financial, industrial and cargo hubs.

The small but growing crop of newcomers is nothing like the immigrants who worked in restaurants in the 1980s and 1990s. They wear fine leather shoes, banter in German, shuttle between Europe and China, and hold MBAs and accounting and legal qualifications.

"There has been a big rise in the number of businesspeople who are Chinese here," said Rainer Gehnen, executive director of the German-Chinese Business Association. "There have been so many investments coming from China to Germany, and they need locally experienced legal, tax and management consultants and advisers." Many service providers in Germany hire Chinese professionals to facilitate efficient communication with their Chinese business partners.

While Chinese companies that acquire German ones usually leave the core management unchanged, Chinese liaison managers are still required. "They help to bridge intercultural differences and align German operations with the Chinese owner's global strategy," says Gehnen.