Factbox: German companies sign contracts with Chinese partners

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German companies signed a series of agreements with Chinese partners during a visit by Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang to Germany on Monday and Tuesday.

Following are details of them:

BASF

BASF signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China's Guangdong Province to look at building a highly integrated chemical production site there, BASF said.

The site would be BASF's largest investment and would be operated under its sole responsibility, it said. The investment is estimated to reach up to $10 billion by completion of the project around 2030, it added.

BMW

BMW and joint venture partner Brilliance Automotive Group Holdings affirmed plans to expand production capacity at BMW Brilliance Automotive's two sites in China to a total of 520,000 BMW brand vehicles in 2019.

The two companies also agreed that the all-electric BMW iX3 would be exported from China to other markets.

BMW agreed to source 4 billion euros' ($4.7 billion) worth of battery cells from Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL) over the next few years, including from a new plant in Erfurt, eastern Germany, that CATL is building.

BMW also signed an MoU with Baidu to join its autonomous driving platform Apollo as a board member.

BMW and China's Great Wall Motor signed an agreement to set up a joint venture for their planned production of Mini brand electric vehicles in China.

BOSCH

Bosch and Chinese electric vehicle startup NIO agreed to cooperate on sensor technology, automated driving, electric motor controls and intelligent transport systems.

CONTINENTAL

Chinese ride-sharing company Didi Chuxing said it signed an agreement with Continental to jointly develop connected vehicles and design purpose-built electric vehicles (EVs) for Didi's services.

DAIMLER

Daimler and Tsinghua University have signed an agreement to extend their cooperation on sustainable transportation research in China by three years.

SIEMENS

Siemens agreed with Alibaba to use the Chinese company's cloud infrastructure to roll out its digital operating system MindSphere.

Siemens and China's State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) signed an MoU confirming their intention to collaborate on heavy-duty gas turbines.

VOLKSWAGEN

Volkswagen said its Spanish brand SEAT would return to the Chinese market in 2020/21 as part of an agreement with China's Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group (JAC) to develop electric vehicles.

Premium brand Audi signed an MoU for strategic cooperation on connected vehicle technology.

VW also signed an MoU for a strategic cooperation with FAW on mobility, connectivity and new energy vehicles, according to a German government document.

The document also showed that it signed a framework agreement for strategic cooperation with China Automotive (Beijing) Intelligent & Connected Vehicles Research Institute on technology development for intelligent connected vehicles.

($1 = 0.8516 euros)

(Compiled by Frankfurt newsroom; Editing by Mark Potter and Adrian Croft)