Industry concerns

Thilo Koeppe, managing director of Dunkermotoren (Taicang), a brushless DC electric-motor manufacturer, said he sees a huge demand in China's urbanization process as increasing mobility spurs demand for railways, metro lines and automobiles.

Wang Jiasheng, managing director of Ebner Industrial Furnaces (Taicang) Co Ltd, an Austrian manufacturer, said he sees potential in China's reduction of energy consumption and industrial facilities.

Wang said China's urbanization will lead more consumers to use high-quality metal products. Heat-treatment technology will make the steel and metal better suited for some applications, he said.

However, German entrepreneurs said China's megatrends bring challenges as well as opportunities.

For example, Wang said, rising wages for Chinese workers in the past few years have cut his company's competitiveness.

"Now we have to compete fiercely with local enterprises as well as overseas enterprises such as those in India," Wang said. For the past few years, his employees' salaries have been increasing at a pace of more than 10 percent annually.

But Wang and his company will stick with China because of the huge market. China now buys more than 50 percent of the world's metals, Wang said.