In addition to the privatization of state-owned companies, efforts were focused from the very beginning on the revival of a healthy small and medium-sized business sector. With the aid of substantial funds from the Federal Government, the states and the European Union, a multitude of new businesses were established which were able to replace most of the jobs that had been eliminated during the restructuring of the state-owned combines. There are meanwhile more than 510,000 small and medium-sized businesses and independent professionals employing a total of about 3.4 million people.

Particularly visible is the progress which has been made in the creation of an efficient infrastructure. Never before in the history of Europe has an infrastructure been so extensively modernized in such a short time:

5>By the end of 1996, 11,000 kilometers of federal trunk roads (including 370 kilometers of autobahns) and 5,000 kilometers of railway track had been newly constructed or thoroughly modernized.