The Flip Side of China's Economic Miracle

[mgc1961]

Expo 2010 is underway in Shanghai, and the luxury bars along the Huangpu River are filled with the delegations of Western companies drinking toasts to the new partnerships they have just formed with Chinese companies. In March, this was also where the Chinese adventure of M.C.M., a construction machinery dealer from the southwestern German city of Mannheim, got its start. But now, despite initial high hopes for the deal, the company is struggling to stay afloat.

The head of M.C.M. has spread out a number of photos on a table in his hotel. They are among the few certainties that Mohammad-Reza Mouazzen, 62, can still cling to. One photo depicts a beaming Mouazzen, an Iranian-born German citizen, at a banquet with Chinese businessmen. It was the day after Mouazzen's Chinese business partners, as he believed at the time, had shipped a used mobile crane, for which he had paid €100,000 ($122,000), to Iran, as their contract had stipulated.

Mouazzen has gray hair, is wearing a dark suit and, as he points out, is not a "baby." For the past 30 years, he has been buying used heavy equipment in countries like Poland and Russia, and then selling it at a profit, often in Iran. It is a tricky business, which is why Mouazzen was careful to cover his bases during his first deal in China. He and his son Omid, 23, documented every step of the process with both photos and videos. One cannot say he behaved naively or negligently in Shanghai.


The rest of the story can be found at http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,698058,00.html