Germany is a highly developed industrial country. Its economic strength ranks first in Europe, and internationally it is the third economic powerhouse after the United States and Japan, and the second largest trading nation after the United States. Germany's economy in 1993 experienced the most serious post-war recession, rebounded strongly in 1994, the gross domestic product growth of 2.9% in 1995, the growth rate slowed down significantly, 1.9%. In 1996, the German economy grew at a low rate of 1.4%, mainly due to the growth of exports, which increased by 4.6% for the year. Domestic investment in equipment was buoyant, growing by 2.6 %; investment in construction was negative by 2.7 %. Public consumption increased by 2.8 %, but private consumption rose by only 1.4 %. The main problems facing the German economy are: unemployment has risen sharply, with 3.97 million unemployed in 1996, an unemployment rate of 10.4%. The number of business bankruptcies was severe, amounting to 25,530, an increase of 14.3% over the previous year. The economy of the eastern part of the country was in serious trouble, with economic growth of only 2% in 1996, far below the 5.3% growth rate of the previous year. In addition the deterioration of the investment climate and the relative lag in industrial restructuring are also important problems plaguing the German economy.
Natural resources
Germany belongs to the relatively poor natural resources of the country, in the industrial raw materials and energy rely mainly on imports. Mineral raw materials (steel, bauxite, manganese, phosphoric acid, tungsten and tin) are particularly dependent on foreign countries. Germany has a small amount of iron ore and oil, one third of the demand for natural gas can be met domestically, hard coal, lignite, potash reserves are relatively rich. Germany's forests cover about one-third of the country's land area and are dominated by coniferous forests. In the west, private forests account for 43%, state forests for 32%, and the rest belong to associations or localities. The national production of timber forests meets only 45% of the domestic timber demand. Lignite is the largest industrial sector in the mining industry. Lignite mines are located mainly in the southern Rhineland Brandenburg and in Saxony, with mined reserves of 56 billion tons. Since 1981, uranium has not been mined due to limited reserves. Enriched uranium for nuclear power plants is imported from abroad.
Industry Overview
(1) Agriculture Overview
Germany's agriculture accounts for about 1 percent of GDP and 4 percent of the total labor force. Germany has a highly developed agriculture industry, with more than 80 percent of agricultural products self-sufficient, and with some imports due to variety or price factors. Labor productivity has increased dramatically over the past 40 years; in 1950, one laborer could feed only 10 people, but in 1994, it could feed 95. The state subsidizes agriculture, and the price of agricultural products has risen less than the increase in wages. According to statistics, the cost of food for a middle-income family of four accounted for 45 percent of all household expenditures in 1950, falling to 15 percent in 1993.
Farmers in northern Germany are more involved in farming, while in the south, stockbreeding is more developed. At present, the country's agricultural land 17 million hectares, less than 600,000 households. German farmers annual investment of about 30 billion marks, annual turnover of 70 billion marks, of which 40 billion for breeding, 30 billion for planting, 85% of the products produced as raw materials for the food industry, providing employment for 900,000 people. In agriculture, 90% of the farmers are engaged in stockbreeding and general cultivation (cereals, sugar beet, etc.), while 10% are specialists in grapes, hops, fruits, vegetables and tobacco. Specialists are highly profitable, but also risky. Ordinary farmers, in order to minimize risk, generally raise and grow both, but with a focus to cope with the unlikely event of a disaster. The average annual income per farmer is 45,000 marks, which is a medium level in Europe. In terms of production value, the largest item in Germany's cultivation industry is cereals, followed by fruits, sugar beets, flowers and ornamental plants, vegetables and so on. In the feeding industry, the largest item is dairy cattle, followed by pigs, cows, chickens and so on.
(2)Industrial Overview
The main pillar of the German economy is industry, which plays an extremely important role in economic development. Industrial output accounts for 35% of the GDP, and employees account for about 40% of the total labor force. Important industrial fields include iron and steel, mining, precision and optical instruments, aerospace, textiles and clothing, food industry and shipbuilding industry. Although the national economy has been growing year by year, the energy consumption of Germany has been declining steadily due to the continuous improvement of the technological level of the German industry. Although the proportion of West German industry in the national economy has declined, it still reflects the economic strength of the Federal Republic of Germany and the level of foreign economic relations and scientific and technological development. The development of West Germany's various industrial sectors is not balanced, some traditional industries - iron and steel, shipbuilding, coal mining, textile industry have now become sunset industry, production and output have been reduced a lot, shipbuilding and coal mining industry rely on state subsidies to survive. The automobile industry, machinery manufacturing, chemical industry, electrical and electronic industry and food industry are the five pillars of Germany's industry, which accounts for 58% of the sales of the whole industry and 40% of the employment. However, due to the world economic downturn in the past two years, the development speed has slowed down. Currently in West Germany belongs to the high-speed growth of the sector is the plastics processing, non-ferrous metals, aerospace industry and telecommunications and data processing industry.
(3) Overview of the service industry
After more than 40 years of development, Germany's industry and agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fisheries in the GNP accounted for the proportion of the year by year, while the tertiary industry (including commerce, transportation, services, etc.) continues to grow. The tertiary sector accounts for nearly 60% of the GNP. In terms of employment, the tertiary sector accounts for 50% of all employed persons. It mainly includes commerce, transportation, telecommunication, banking, insurance, rental housing, hotels, education, culture, health care and other sectors. Tourism is well developed, and a large number of tourists visit Germany every year.
Major Economic Indicators
Gross Domestic Product (GDP): DM 35,387 billion
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita: about DM 43,300
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate: 1.4%
National Income (NI): DM 26,650 billion
Exchange rate: 1 USD = DM 1.7793
Inflation: 1.5%
Unemployment: 10.4%
German Economy------- locomotive of the European economy
It is not an exaggeration to say that the German economy determines the entire European economy. As one of the seven economic powers in the West, Germany's economy sits at the top in Europe (equal to the sum of Britain and France), and is known as the "locomotive of the European economy". Its GDP accounts for one-third of the European Union. Europe accounts for 36.9% of global trade, and Germany itself accounts for half of the EU.
Because of historical reasons, the Germans can not play an important role in the international community, but they were able to put all their efforts on economic construction and in a very short period of time in the economy to defeat the victorious countries of the year, with the unification of Europe's continuous development, Germany in the European economy to play a more and more important role in the trend is to become the economic center of Europe. 1999 began to use "the euro", the German mark accounted for its share of the "Euro", the German mark accounted for its share of the "Euro". "
The German mark accounts for 45% of its share, and the headquarters of the future European Central Bank will be located in Frankfurt, Germany.
Germany from a piece of rubble after World War II to re-squeeze in the world's economic powerhouse is its reasons, Germany's lack of natural resources, mainly by high-quality industrial exports, imports of industrial raw materials, agricultural products and other resource-based products, in order to promote the rapid growth of the domestic economy. This is mainly attributed to the successful practice of the social market economy system in Germany and the importance Germany attaches to the development of education and the training of highly qualified workers. In order to promote technological innovation, the State encourages cooperation between the scientific research sector and the economic sector, which has resulted in the increasingly high technological content of German exports. Every year to the international market to provide a large number of automobiles, pharmaceuticals, chemical products, optical instruments, machine tools, complete sets of power generation equipment and environmental protection technology equipment and other first-class products, such as Germany's famous multinational corporations Siemens, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volkswagen and so on.
In Germany, technology development and innovation are carried out by enterprises according to market needs. The state provides them with policies and other necessary conditions and assistance for technological innovation. In order to accelerate the conversion of scientific research results into practical applications, enterprises receive financial assistance and enjoy favorable tax policies from the state in areas such as technology transfer.
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