Entrepreneur Stefan Messer is a member of the business delegation that is visiting China with Minister Glos.

Stefan Messer, owner and CEO of the industrial gas specialist Messer, is a member of the business delegation that is accompanying the Federal Minister of Economics and Technology Michael Glos to China this week. Predominantly represented in the delegation are small and medium-sized companies. “To expand economic relations it is essential that small and medium-sized German companies obtain direct access to potential business partners in China,” explains Stefan Messer. The entrepreneur from Frankfurt hopes that the medium-sized and family enterprises from Germany that are active in China will network more closely. Messer already has over ten years experience in the Chinese market. Last year some 1,000 employees in its 15 companies generated sales of more than 100 million euros.

German and Chinese know-how combined

One of the topics addressed by the German delegation in China will be the problem of implementing protective legislation for intellectual property in China. Messer has played its part in solving these problems by means of a joint venture in the plant-engineering sector with the largest Chinese producer of air separation plants. “Our know-how in the context of cost-effectiveness and technology goes hand in hand with the enormous production capacities of HangYang Ltd. in the joint venture ‘Cryogenic Engineering’,” says Stefan Messer on this cooperation. Within the delegation he is member of the working group “Strengthening the cooperation within the chemical industry” because the Chinese industrial gas market is also undergoing major changes: while Messer achieves more than half of its annual turnover in Europe with gases in cylinders, in China most notably large air separation plants have been constructed on the sites of steel works. But now nitrogen, oxygen and co. are also conquering other sectors, such as the food industry, the chemical and petrochemical industry and the manufacturing industry.