Honorable German entrepreneurs,

Firstly, on behalf of the Shenyang city government and Shenyang residents, I would like to extend my sincere thanks and best wishes to our German friends who are highly regarded and have supported the development of the city over a long period of time.

Shenyang, as one of six Chinese metropolises, is the center of Northeast China's economy, culture, innovation, trade and logistics, the core among eight cities comprising the Shenyang Economic Zone, and an important equipment manufacturing base in China, known as the Oriental Ruhr.

Recent years have witnessed increasing close economic and trade cooperation between Shenyang and Germany.

The trade volume between the two exceeded $5 billion in 2014, ranking highest among all the city's 178 trade partners.

So far, 136 German enterprises have started businesses in Shenyang, including BMW and Siemens.

The output value of BMW in Shenyang surged to more than 100 billion yuan ($16.11 billion) in 2014 from its initial 3.2 billion yuan in 2003.

Shenyang has become the biggest BMW research and production base in the world. Concurrently, Shenyang enterprises have also experienced rapid development.

The Shenyang Fantian Industrial Design Company was a winner of the German Red Dot Award and iF Design Award.

Shenyang Machine Tool's merger and acquisition of German company SCHIESS and more than $130 million investment in Germany from local companies, such as Shenyang Yuanda Aluminum Industry Engineering and Northern Heavy Industries are evidence of the deepening economic and trade cooperation between the two.

Currently, the Liaoning capital has seized the strategic opportunity brought by the revitalization of Northeast China to establish a global manufacturing base for advanced equipment.

The New Revitalization Northeast China Plan, released last year by the State Council, suggested building a Sino-German (Shenyang) Intelligent Equipment Manufacturing Park in the city. By this, the industrial park has been part of national strategy.

We will build it with German concepts, standards and technologies with focuses on smart manufacturing, advanced machinery manufacturing, automobile manufacturing and industrial services, setting a model for "Made in China 2025". Meanwhile, we will make it a second hometown for our German friends as we adopt German elements in public service and domestic facilities.

Lately, we took part in the Hannover Messe promoting the Sino-German (Shenyang) Intelligent Equipment Manufacturing Park and we have successfully held a German Enterprises Shenyang Tour. Next month, an economic and trade delegation from the city government will visit Germany and discuss major projects for perfecting communication between the two sides.

A German saying goes that "Accumulation of individual effort is addition while accumulation of joint efforts is multiplication". We welcome more and more German enterprises to start business in Shenyang. We will safeguard each of them to follow policies as well as procedures for examination and approval, just as we did for BMW. Such German enterprises are expected to settle and become vibrant here in the city.

Lastly, I wish all our German friends health and happiness! I hope for our friendship and cooperation to remain evergreen!

Mayor of Shenyang, Pan Liguo (signed)

(China Daily European Weekly 06/26/2015 page14)