German tourism industry grew by 3 percent in 2007 12. February 2008 by Thomas Jannot Last year was a good year for tourism. In Germany the number of overnight stays by tourists amounted to 361.9 million last year. This figure includes overnight stays in accommodation places with at least nine beds and those at camping sites. The number of overnight stays increased by 3% in comparison with the year 2006.
Central European contact point for SMEs launched 11. February 2008 by Thomas Jannot The EU operates a new service network for companies: The “Enterprise Europe Network” unites all important contacts in the field of business aid programmes to form an one-stop-service. This is to support in particular small and medium-sized entities (SMEs). The network is made up of more than 500 European organisations.
German companies relocating abroad 9. February 2008 by Thomas Jannot According to the Federal Statistical Office, about 14% of German companies with at least 100 employees relocated some of their business activities abroad in the period between 2001 and 2006. 4% are at least planning to relocate by the end of the year 2009. About 60% of these companies chose the twelve new EU member …
Bavaria’s economy growing the fastest 9. February 2008 by Thomas Jannot Among all German Federal Laender the economy of Bavaria grew the fasted last year. This was found out by the Arbeitskreis Volkswirtschaftliche Gesamtrechnung der Länder. Bavaria´s economic growth amounted to 2.9% after +2.5% and rank 6 in 2006. Thus, Bavaria’s growth in 2007 was significantly stronger than that of the German economy as a whole …
Indian software companies under pressure 8. February 2008 by Thomas Jannot The myth about India being the source of first-class software for global markets starts crumbling: according to the opinion of German decision makers in the IT field, India’s software companies do worse than their Chinese counterparts in eleven out of twelve criteria. There are deficits with regard to investment risk, availability, maintenance and reliability. With …
Foreign growth with Turkey growing more slowly 7. February 2008 by Thomas Jannot As was reported by the Federal Statistical Office yesterday, German exports to Turkey increased by 5.0% to 13.9 billion Euros in the period from January to November 2007 as compared to the same period one year earlier. Imports from Turkey to Germany grew by 5.7% to 9.0 billion Euros in the same period.
Increased investment in R&D due to robust economy 7. February 2008 by Thomas Jannot A few days ago, Mr Jürgen Hambrecht, who is vice-president of the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft and chairman of the BASF SE, announced that in 2008 the R&D expenditure by companies may for the first time exceed the 55 billion Euro barrier.
Percentage of people receiving very low wages up by 43% since 1995 7. February 2008 by Thomas Jannot The Institut Arbeit und Qualifikation (IAQ) at the Duisburg-Essen University complains about the fact that the percentage of people working for minimum wages has increased by about 43% since 1995. 6.5 million people (22% of all employees) had worked for too little money in the year 2006. This was revealed in the course of studies …
First reader survey launched in the MittelstandsWiki 6. February 2008 by Thomas Jannot The MittelstandsBlog came into existence in October 2005. After the MittelstandsWiki had started in September 2006, the number of our visitors more than quintupled over a period of a few months. In January 2008 alone the MittelstandsWiki and its journals attracted about 75.000 readers. We, the editorial team, would now like to get to know …
Email becoming more and more popular 6. February 2008 by Thomas Jannot Emails are becoming increasingly popular with customers and are already as important as dealing with customer requests by telephone. This finding was discovered in the course of the “Multichannel-Management” study by the novomind software company. The above-mentioned two communication channels receive school marks 2.1 and 1.9 by customers. Companies, on the other hand, appreciate email …