WHEN German Chancellor Angela Merkel chose Chengdu to start her recent three-day official visit to China, she picked a quickly urbanizing city that is the capital of southwestern China’s Sichuan Province.

“Chengdu’s economy is growing at a very high speed and is full of new opportunities and possibilities,” said the German chancellor at a forum on urbanization cooperation between the local province and Germany.

Delegates from German companies also spoke positively about the urbanization achievements in Chengdu and expressed willingness to seek further collaboration. The official German delegation and trade mission consist of more than 90 members.

Germany is China’s largest EU trade partner, and collaboration between the two countries is frequent in a number of areas. The European Project Innovation Center (Chengdu) was established in the Chengdu Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone in 2006, and 43 EU companies have located in Chengdu. The city is serving as something of a bridgehead as Europe seeks more business opportunities in China.

“The city, home to 15 million residents, is known for numerous international electronics and IT factories,” Der Spiegel journalist Nikolaus Blome wrote in an online report. “Assembly lines of electronics factories produce iPhones and iPads and ship them to destinations all over the world, and the chip industry has created a large number of factories here.”

It was Merkel herself who chose to start her visit from Chengdu, said  Michael Clauss, German ambassador to China.

Xu Kuangdi, former vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the co-chairman of the 2014 China-Germany Dialogue Forum, said that Chengdu has become a new engine in attracting foreign investment and has provided new growth potential for China’s economy.

The city has been strengthening transportation infrastructure construction to consolidate its position as a traffic hub in western China.

Chengdu a rising aviation hub

Chengdu has opened a number of international flights. Air China’s flight between Chengdu and Frankfurt, launched on May 19, 2013, is the second direct flight between Chengdu and a European city. The flights can save travelers five hours or more, as they previously had to fly to Shanghai or Beijing to make their connection to Europe.

Last year, Chengdu launched flights to eight international destinations including Melbourne, Frankfurt, London and Doha.

By the end of June this year, the city had 231 international flights and cargo routes linking 173 domestic and international cities.

Chengdu is planning to start construction of a second airport at the end of this year to ease traffic and meet growing cross-border cargo and passenger transportation.

Re-opening of the Silk Road

The railway cargo route linking Chengdu and Europe was put into operation in April last year. This “New Silk Road” broadens the western gateway to Europe.

After a year of operation, inland cities no longer rely on coastal ports to get their merchandise exported to foreign countries.

The passageway covers 10 major European destinations in five countries including Kazakhstan and Russia, and finally reaches Poland, providing a cargo gateway to Europe for exporters in western China.

International logistics firm DHL announced last year it would launch a weekly cargo train using the Chengdu-Europe trading route.

It saves at least half of the transportation time compared to waterway transportation, which previously took five weeks.

The city’s logistics authorities said the running time of the railway route is expected to be cut to 12 days later this year.

A new phase of cooperation

Merkel attended the China-Germany Dialogue Forum 2014 during her stop in Chengdu. The forum, a non-governmental event established in Berlin in 2005, aims to explore bilateral cooperation in various fields and to make recommendations to the two governments. It marked the first time the forum in China was held outside Beijing, demonstrating Germany’s recognition of Chengdu’s economic development and its willingness to explore the growth potential in the city.

“The government’s ‘Go West’ policy gives foreign companies a lot of investment opportunities in Chengdu,” said Martin Brudermüller, vice chairman of the board of executive directors at the German chemical firm BASF SE and co-chairman of the forum.

“Chengdu has become BASF’s new investment choice, as our major clients are in the automobile industry and Chengdu has a well-developed automobile and IT industry,” he said in an interview with Chengdu Daily during the forum.

FAW-Volkswagen’s Chengdu factory produced its 1 millionth car in April this year, a three-year milestone that Juergan Unser, vice president and board member of FAW-Volkswagen, called a “China miracle.”

The Chengdu site is the second production base of FAW-Volkswagen after Changchun in Shenyang Province, and has been fully operational since the third phase of the project was put into use at the end of 2013.

Merkel sat in a new Jetta during her visit to the FAW-Volkswagen Chengdu factory.

Having attracted investment from multinational automakers such as Volkswagen, Toyota and Volvo, the Chengdu Economic Development Zone has become an important industrial base for car companies.

In Pujiang County, the city has also set up a small and medium-sized industrial park and a number of companies have located there, including Bosch Packaging Technology, Bosch Power Tools, and Bosch Packaging China Research and Development Center.

A total of 53 German companies had invested in Chengdu by the end of December last year, with a total capital injection of US$1.13 billion.

Last year, the trade value between Chengdu and Germany was US$1.51 billion.

More European connections

Chengdu has 23 sister cities, with 13 of them in Europe. The “New Silk Road” is reviving the trade passage, as well as providing a closer link between the city and European destinations.

Merkel’s visit put Chengdu under the spotlight of German media. The city is already a sister city with Bonn and established a friendly cooperation relationship with Berlin in 2007.

Chengdu has been sending delegates to the Asia-Pacific Week in Berlin to introduce the city’s business environment and its achievement in terms of sustainable urbanization development.

Last year, the Chengdu-Bonn sustainable low-carbon development partnership was launched with support from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the Mercator Foundation, and implemented by E3G and Germanwatch.

Under the framework agreement, the Chengdu-Bonn sustainable development forum was held in the two cities in January and October last year, respectively, bringing together government agencies, research institutions and non-governmental organizations to discuss a wide range of subjects including low-carbon development, green architecture and enterprise energy saving plans.

During her visit, Merkel was deeply impressed by Sichuan cuisine and stopped for a short visit at the local Shen Xian Shu market, showing a fascination for its diverse selection of seasonings.

“I still have to learn how to make good use of them to make nice food out of them,” she was quoted by the Bild as saying.

The wide range of food seasonings for which Sichuan is well known is an apt metaphor for the variety of attractions and advantages that Chengdu has shown during China’s long-standing trade relationship with Germany.