Skip the tourist spots, visit the factories instead: "foreign plant managers" are flocking to China to learn the ropes, focusing on three major tracks.

According to public reports, a rapidly warming phenomenon has emerged recently: a growing number of overseas investors, corporate executives, academic elites, and young entrepreneurs are forming groups to make special trips to China for inspections. They focus on visiting enterprises in new energy vehicles, lithium batteries, humanoid robots, artificial intelligence, and other industries in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Hefei, and other places. Three major innovation routes are most favored by German companies. "The inspection and visit trips usually last about 10 days and cover 4 cities, with a very tight schedule." The China International Investment Promotion Center, where Andrea Hcker works, mainly provides two-way investment promotion services for the German-speaking region. Decision-makers from German small and medium-sized enterprises, local government representatives, and industry cluster representatives have visited China three times in the past year to inspect the automotive, smart manufacturing, and life sciences industries here. "In the past, Chinese enterprises went to Germany to learn, and mainly in traditional industries," He Xuehua mentioned. Now entrepreneurs are all going to China with clear goals, and the themes of inspection have also shifted: from traditional industries to smart manufacturing, artificial intelligence, robotics, and life sciences. She told reporters that destinations and routes matching the three major industries of automotive, smart manufacturing, and life sciences have been widely welcomed by participants such as decision-makers from German small and medium-sized enterprises, local government representatives, and industry cluster representatives.