SHANGHAI Party Secretary Han Zheng met Eveline Lemke, deputy prime minister and minister of economy, climate change, energy and regional development of Rhineland-Palatinate State in Germany, on Monday.

Han said Shanghai has a long-term close relationship with several German cities and states and is a sister city of Hamburg. Germany is a world leader in applying Internet-based technologies in real economy and has achieved encouraging results. Germany’s experiences are worth learning.

He said Shanghai is striving to become a global innovation center and is pursuing innovation-driven economic growth. However, there is still a bottleneck in the conversion of new technologies into productivity and the city needs to strengthen the protection of intellectual properties.