2007 was yet another successful year for international trade in machines and equipment which grew by 11.7%. “German exports increased by 10.6%”, said Manfred Wittenstein who is chairman of the German association for mechanical and plant engineering (VDMA). This places Germany on top of the list of the world’s most important exporting countries of such products. more…

Betting online is becoming more and more popular. Currently there are about 2.2 million Germans who bet and gamble on the internet. Most of the time the amounts of money at stake are small, says the German Association for Information Management, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM). Half a million Germans bet on sports events, in particular soccer matches. 96% of these bet on games in the German premier league and one in six on major soccer events in general. These data were provided by the Forsa polling firm. more…

The market for legal downloads of music, audio books, videos, games and software continues booming. In the first quarter 2008 Germans carried out 12 million downloads to the value of 52 million Euros which is an increase by 30% in comparison with the same period last year. In particular the interest by people older than 50 is growing. more…

At the institute for psychology at the Johannes Gutenberg-University in Mainz one student in his diploma thesis dealt with the question of how a brand is perceived by consumers if a company operates socially responsibly. The finding: the more unknown or younger a brand, the more the corporate social responsibility of a company influences the reputation of its brands. more…

According to estimates by Eurostat, the European Statistical Office, the EU27 registered a huge deficit in its balance of current accounts amounting to 23.7 billion Euros in the first quarter of 2008. Even though this result is better than in the first quarter of 2007 (then -30.4 billion Euros), it is significantly higher than in the fourth quarter of 2007 (-2.8 billion). more…

In the period from May 2007 to May 2008 wholesale trade selling prices in Germany increased by 8.1%. According to the Federal Statistical Office, this is the highest annual inflation rate since February 1982. In April and March 2008 annual inflation had been 6.9% and 7.1% respectively. In comparison with April this year wholesale trade selling prices increased by 1.4%. more…

The majority of Germans are fascinated by the idea of setting up their own businesses, but they shy away from taking action in this respect. This is the finding of a representative survey among more than thousand Germans conducted by the TNS Emnid polling firm. more…

Turnover in the processing industry is decreasing. As was reported by the Federal Statistical Office, even though turnover increased in April this year as compared to April last year by 4.7% in real terms (following +4.1% in March), turnover in real terms after adjustments for season and calendar for the period between March 2008 and April 2008 fell by 0.8%. more…

According to the Federal Statistical Office, German exports increased significantly in April. The volume of exported goods increased by 13.9% to 89.8 billion Euros in the period between April 2007 and April 2008. Imports grew by 11.7% and reached 71.0 billion Euros. more…

Due to the high amount of incoming orders from within Germany and abroad, the German association for mechanical and plant engineering (VDMA) is forecasting a new record turnover amounting to 8.9 billion Euros in 2008. This would correspond to a growth of 9%. Already in 2007 turnover in Germany increased by 13% to 8.2 billion Euros in this field. more…