20 years of Sino-German cooperation in vocational training and education (VET) have produced a great many mutual benefits. This article outlines the stages underwent during the development of Sino-German cooperation in VET, describing certain experiences, in particular highlighting practices such as labour market oriented curricula, action based and student centred learning techniques and the use of modern media, that most contributed to the successful planning and implementation of cooperative projects. One particular lesson to emerge over these twenty years of international cooperation is that concentrating on proven practices will in most cases produce good results, regardless of the policies formulated at the macro level.