“I will leave China, but China will not leave me”

Berlin In the last few months as President of the European Chamber of Commerce in Beijing, Jörg Wuttke has once again made a big tour of China. “You get a very close look at the problems,” he says. After a total of ten years as head of the lobby organization and more than three decades in the People’s Republic, he handed over his office to his successor, the Dane Jens Eskelund, this month. And next year, Wuttke will leave China entirely.

Wuttke, who was born in 1958, came to China in 1987 – after an initial period of study – for what is now the industrial company ABB. From 1997 he was BASF’s general representative in the People’s Republic. When he founded the EU chamber together with other business representatives in 2000, it had just 51 members – today there are 1800.