Hoppstaedten-Weiersbach: the idyllic German village that’s now home to 1,000 Chinese

Chinese entrepreneur Zhang Jianxin’s first thought was that he had fallen victim to a fraud scheme when he arrived at the location of his investment in a small German village.

For just over a million yuan each (US$143,000), he and 11 other Chinese businessmen were promised flats in the village and help with navigating Germany’s bureaucracy, including obtaining residency permits and registering a business.

“But when I first got here, the grass was taller than people … I told the ICCN CEO I have the impression that it’s all a scam,” Zhang said, referring to the company in charge.

As it turned out, it was all above board.

Six years on, Zhang is one of 1,000 Chinese who have moved to Hoppstaedten-Weiersbach, total population 3,500, where they have also set up shop.

All of them had been won over by Chinese businesswoman Jane Hou and her German partner Andreas Scholz, who conceived the idea of building the biggest Chinese trading centre in Europe.

Three hundred small and medium-sized Chinese firms now have registered German businesses in the village, tucked within a ring of forests in western Germany’s Rhineland-Palatinate state.