Thanks to a new bill by the Federal Ministry of Justice, shareholders may in future take part online over the internet in general meetings, ask questions and vote in real-time mode. In return, the calling of the general meeting, its agenda and all petitions do not have to be published in paper any more. It will be sufficient to publish all the afore-mentioned documents on the homepage of the company in question. The only precondition is a modification of the company’s statutes and articles. more…

New portals on the internet are very popular and their visitors´ number hit a new record high in the first quarter 2008: the twenty most popular news portals were visited in total 1.2 billion times over this period. This corresponds to an increase by 33% in comparison with last year. The afore-mentioned figures are from a study published by the German Association for Information Management, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM). more…

It is very likely that Germany will remain the world’s most important exporting country in 2008. China, on the other hand, will drop back to the third position. This was reported yesterday by the Federal Agency for Foreign Trade (bfai). Despite smaller growth in exports during the month of March, German exports nevertheless grew by 21% in the first quarter. The gap between Germany and China remained almost unchanged, according to the bfai experts in Cologne. more…

Germany is catching up with regard to the number of households having broad band internet access. In the meantime fifty percent of all households are equipped with such fast internet access. Thus, the number of households having broad band internet access has quadrupled since the year 2003. According to the German Association for Information Management, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM), by the end of the year 2008 about 23 million households in Germany (58%) will have broad band internet access. more…

According to the German Association for Information Management, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM) the e-business in foodstuffs and beverages shrank slightly for the first time last year with turnover falling by 3% to 119 million Euros. In previous years turnover in this sector had grown at sometimes two-digit rates as is demonstrated by figures provided by the GfK market research institute. more…

The number of people working in the processing industry continued increasing in March. It rose by 147.500 to 5.3 million as compared to March 2007 which is a plus by 2.8%, as was reported by the Federal Statistical Office. Most jobs were created in mechanical engineering. more…

According to the Bundesnetzagentur, the volume of phone calls in 2007 increased by 5.1% to 253 billion minutes as compared to the year 2006. This corresponds to an average of 51 hours per person and per year. Most strongly grew internet telephony (+78%) followed by mobile phone calls which increased by 19.6%. The number of landline phone calls, on the other hand, fell by 3.4%. more…

Consumer prices once again significantly increased in April. According to the Federal Statistical Office, the consumer price index for Germany rose by 2.4% in April 2008 as compared to April 2007. In comparison with April 2008, however, this index slightly decreased by 0.2%. In March there had still been an increase by 3.1% on the previous month. Thus, inflation is rising less strongly as was already the case in March. more…

Imports from the People’s Republic of China to Germany have almost tripled in the period from the year 2000 to the year 2007, as was reported by the Federal Statistical Office. In 2007, imports amounted to 54.6 billion Euros. This means that China is the third most important importing to Germany country. In the year 2000 imports reached only 18.6 billion Euros which placed China in position 10 among the ten most important importing countries to Germany. more…

In the period between the year 2000 and 2007 exports from the EU27 to the 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries (LAC) increased less than imports from this region. While exports increased from 59 billion to 75 billion Euros, imports grew from 54 to 92 billion Euros. Thus, there was a trade deficit of 17 billion Euros at the end of the year 2007. more…