Maintaining Germany’s attractiveness as a location for business and industry : Germany

Both the business community and society must adapt to ever stiffer global competition and institute structural changes in order to ensure that Germany remains an attractive location for business and industry in the future.

The prospects for success are good. Germany has a number of indisputable strengths, such as 2>a balanced economic structure with many productive large, small and medium-sized firms; >a highly skilled work force. Germany’s dual system of vocational training is highly respected throughout the world. Its efficiency is reflected in the country’s relatively low rate of juvenile unemployment; >a very good public infrastructure in the areas of transport and communications; and ^remarkable economic and social stability. The immediate priorities are to boost growth, considerably reduce unemployment and increase the Federal

Republic of Germany’s attractiveness for investors and employers. The Federal Government has presented a comprehensive 50-point Action Program for Jobs and Investment, an overall concept aimed at instituting a process of structural change. It is now being implemented point by point and was further elaborated in the Program for More Growth and Employment presented in April 1996. Nearly all of the foreseen measures have meanwhile been implemented or the groundwork therefor has been laid.