Germany and China want to cooperate on automated driving

Germany and China aim to cooperate on automated and connected driving. The Federal Minister for Digital and Transport, Volker Wissing, the Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, Franziska Brantner, and the Chinese Minister for Industry and Information Technology, Jin Zhuanglong, have signed a Joint Declaration of Intent on dialogue and cooperation in the field of automated and connected driving between the Federal Republic of Germany and the People's Republic of China.

"Autonomous and connected driving is linked with the hope for safer and more efficient mobility in the future. We are currently in a crucial development phase where the goal is to bring the technology from labs to the roads. The key to this lies in fair competition. For this, common standards and norms, to whose development our Joint Declaration of Intent will contribute, are important and useful," said Federal Minister Volker Wissing (FDP).

The Parliamentary State Secretary, Franziska Brantner (Greens), sees automated and connected driving playing a central role in future mobility. It also opens up new business models for the automotive industry. At the same time, there is awareness of the "challenging business environment in China," especially the increasingly restrictive data legislation that sets tight limits on cross-border data transfer, Brantner further outlined.

Pushing forward standardization

This is where the Joint Declaration of Intent should come into play, not only contributing to promoting international standardization and fair competition in this field but also enabling concrete progress on the topic of reciprocal data transfer—in respect of national and EU data law. The aim is to achieve tangible results, the politician concluded.