Sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time. Robert Cao's father – formerly an exporter of Christmas tree candles – was there at the right moment when a German car manufacturer was looking for suppliers for its factories in China. Today father and son work together to produce high-quality components for German car manufacturers such as BMW, Mercedes or Volkswagen in the Chinese city of Jiangyin. They both benefit from the technical expertise they acquired in Germany and particularly in North Rhine-Westphalia. To enable more people from their native China to be in the right place at the right time, Robert Cao opened the Düsseldorf China Center in 2005 – as a marketplace for Chinese investors and representatives of German companies. Meanwhile, approximately 500 Chinese companies have found a home away from home in the cosmopolitan metropolitan region North Rhine-Westphalia, among them many global players such as HUAWEI, Midea, Minmetals and Sany.