BERLIN - Trade between China and Germany is expected to reach new highs, as mutual trade and investment will continue expanding, Chinese Ambassador Wu Hongbo said Friday.

Bilateral trade between China and Germany, both economic powers in the world, totalled $142.4 billion in 2010, Wu told a press briefing.

The prospect of bilateral trade remains promising for the rest of this year, as it already hit $127 billion in the first nine months, despite the sweeping global economic and financial crisis, he said.

While mutual direct investment has gained momentum in recent years, a huge imbalance still exists. According to official statistics, German direct investment in China had reached $18.03 billion by the end of August, more than 10-fold that of Chinese direct investment in Germany, which stood at only $1.73 billion.

As Chinese investment accounts for only 0.3 percent of Germany's total foreign direct investment, Chinese enterprises have huge potential to increase direct investment to Germany.

"The economic structures of the two countries are reciprocally complementary than competitive," Wu said, noting that Chinese enterprises are encouraged to expand various forms of cooperation with their German counterparts.

"This will be conducive to bringing to full play China's comparative advantages in manufacturing and Germany's technological ones," he said. "It will help open more sales channels in the Chinese market for German products and will also help boost employment in Germany."

Of the 1,300 Chinese-funded enterprises which have set up branch offices in Germany, Shenyang Machine Tool (Group) Co Ltd is a good example. It has ploughed an accumulative investment worth some 200 billion dollars since it acquired the German company SCHIESS in 2004.

Among major Chinese enterprises which have stepped up direct investment in Germany, Huawei, a leading global networking and telecommunication provider, has also established its European headquarters and R&D center in Germany.