The opening ceremony of China's first Sino-German Youth Innovation Cooperation Entrepreneurship Week project was held in Taicang, East China's Jiangsu province, on June 13.

Major Chinese and German officials declare the opening of China's first Sino-German Youth Innovation Cooperation Entrepreneurship Week. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Around 100 delegates from Germany and 300 representatives from universities, research institutes and businesses in Jiangsu province attended the event.

Around 100 delegates from Germany and 300 representatives from universities, research institutes and businesses in Jiangsu province attended the event. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The project that was aimed to encourage Chinese and German youth business talks and exchanges in key technology sectors. As scheduled, the opening ceremony of the event, China-Germany young entrepreneur forum, the China-Germany youth start-up competition award ceremony, road performances and field study tours on in Taicang during June 13 and 14 and gave a press conference, one-on-one investment and trade fair in Nanjing and Changzhou from June 15 to 16.

Several high-profile officials spoke at the ceremony, including Wang Qin, head of Jiangsu Science and Technology Department, Shen Mi, Party Secretary of Taicang, Volker Rieke, director general of the European and International Cooperation in Education and Research of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany.

Shen Mi, Taicang Party secretary [Photo provided to China Daily]

According to Taicang Party Secretary Shen Mi, Taicang has attracted more than 260 German-funded projects worth more than 20.5 billion yuan ($3 billion) in the last 20 years, which have produced revenues of more than 40 billion yuan.

The joint commission conference on Sino-Germany sci-tech innovative cooperation, as he put it, which was co-organized MOST and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany, and hosted in either country in turns according to the agreement, served to be a platform of enormous significance for their strategic partnership. Taicang was selected as the city right after Beijing to give the conference this year, and he hoped Chinese and German youths to take this opportunity and continue promoting bilateral relation.

Taicang has become so important to Sino-German relations that it was the second city in China after Beijing to be selected as a host venue for the Joint Commission Conference on Sino-German Sci-Tech Innovation Cooperation, a state-level event organized by China's Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and Germany's Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Shen added.

The city's influence has been growing since 2008, when China's Ministry of Commerce and Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy selected Taicang as a pilot city for boosting business exchanges between the two countries.

Taicang has Germany's third largest center in China after Beijing and Shanghai and the eighth largest in the world outside of Germany itself.

Taicang was also the first Chinese city selected to be a model city for collaboration between Chinese and German small- and medium-sized businesses and is the only base providing China-Germany intellectual rights protection.

The county-level city was also included in China's macro plan for promoting cooperation on innovation with Germany.

The 2017 China-Germany Forum: Shaping Innovation Together, which was targeted to further talks on the "German Industry 4.0" proposal and to help promote China-Germany cooperation in the intelligent sectors, principally manufacturing, smart automobiles, innovation and entrepreneurship, was just completed in Berlin on June 1, and Taicang, in a key role, showcased its reinforced ties with Germany at the event.