German watch brand Junghans opened its first store in China in February at the five-star Jin Jiang Hotel in Taicang, 48 kilometres northwest of Shanghai. In addition to its impressive setting and international guests, the hotel’s modern architecture makes it the perfect site for the first Junghans store.

At the opening ceremony members of the Steim family, which owns Junghans, as well as CEO Matthias Stotz, welcomed local representatives from German companies, politicians, businessmen and the press, including the Chairman of the Taicang Development Area and Deputy Mayor of Taicang, Wanli Zhu.

The establishment of a wholly-owned subsidiary “Junghans Watch (Taicang) Trading Co., Ltd.” preceded the opening of the store. Back in 1993 Dr. Hans-Jochem Stein became the first German investor to set up production facilities for the Kern-Liebers Group as a wholly-owned subsidiary, thus avoiding the need to set up a joint venture with a local company. Numerous other successful German companies followed his example and set themselves up in the region. As a result, Dr. Steim was awarded honorary citizenship of Taicang in 2005. Because of its “German Industrial Park” the city is considered to be the focal point of Sino-German cooperation.