A well-dressed Santa hands out candies to customers filing through the entrance of Berlin's Karstadt shopping center. It may not occur to the joyful shoppers that the Santa suit, the dazzling light bulbs and the shiny silk strings on that 7-foot Christmas tree are probably all made in China.
German consumers usually become more generous during this season of the year as the new year is approaching and stores begin to slash prices on everything. However, many buyers would still not easily compromise on the quality of their purchases even with the price drop, no matter where they are from.
Frauke Focke was looking for a pair of boots as her Christmas gift. "I've bought some pretty nice boots," said the 32-year-old who works as a marketing assistant for a German logistics company. "I didn't even know they are made in China until I was home and looked at the tab."
"I may not care about where they are from, but I do care about the design and the quality, and of course the price has to be good," she said.
Michael Kroehnert, manager of the shoe store, said two-thirds of the shoes he sells are from China or Vietnam.
"They are so popular here only because they are competitive," he said. "And not just because of the price."
German radio Deutsche Welle said in a recent report that "Made in China" products are "hugely popular" in Germany as China has overtaken the United States as the third-largest exporter to Germany only after France and the Netherlands.
According to the German Federal Statistics Office, a quarter of Germany's imported textiles came from China in 2006 while leather goods such as shoes from China made up 29 percent of its total leather goods imports. Meanwhile, Chinese-made toys made up about 60 percent of Germany's toy market.
And the popularity of Chinese products in Germany does not stop at textiles or toys.
Since 1996, TVs, radios and mobile telephones as well as computers made in China are increasingly breaking into the German market. It's estimated that one in three computers sold in Germany is manufactured in China, said the radio report.
According to federal statistics, Chinese products stood for 6.7percent of Germany's imports in 2006 with an amount worth of 48.8 billion euros (about 69.8 billion U.S. dollars). Until ten years ago, Chinese exports made up just 2.6 percent of overall German imports.
Source: Xinhua
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