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CeBIT: Key Role of Information and Communications Technologies

In a globalized economy, innovation is a major factor in keeping one step ahead of your competitors – particularly for a business location like Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel underscored at the opening of the CeBIT trade fair for IT and telecom in Hannover.

The German government will focus the support it gives to the research community in order to consolidate innovative potential in the information and communication technologies sector.

"If we are to retain our position as one of the world's most innovative economies in the long term, we will need more than ever a climate in which ideas can be translated into facts and research into marketable products, procedures and services," Merkel declared in her opening speech.

The Chancellor looked back at the invention of the Braun tube, or cathode-ray tube, 110 years ago and at Konrad Zuse's first mechanical calculator. Right up to the present day, these German inventions are the basis for the worldwide spread of computers, monitors and televisions.

These two examples, according to Merkel, are impressive proof that small innovative steps can develop into vast markets. Today, the information and telecommunications branch chalks up a worldwide turnover of more than 2 trillion euros.

The locomotive of growth for all branches of industry

Chancellor Merkel called for a robust innovation offensive, with information and communication technologies (ICT) playing a key role as the locomotive of economic growth. Even today, more than 80 percent of German exports are managed by products of the digital economy.

The ICT branch generated almost 74 billion euros value added in 2005, the highest figure recorded by any classical branch of industry, well ahead of mechanical engineering, the automobile industry and the metal-working industry. And, with its workforce of 800,000 it is one of the largest employers in Germany. To this figure must be added another 650,000 specialists in the applications sector. One quarter of all new patents now come from the ICT sector.

Overarching concept for innovation policy

Germany’s hi-tech strategy gears innovation policy toward 17 promising fields: alongside information and telecommunications technologies these include energy, health, nanotechnology and traffic and transport technologies.

For the overall innovation-policy strategy, the German government will be making a total of about 15 billion euros available by 2009. Spending on research and development will be scaled up to 3 % of economic output by 2010. But it is not only government that is called on to act. "Industry must provide the lion's share," stressed Merkel. Private businesses must provide about two thirds of the research performed in Germany.

Efforts at EU level

As the acting EU president, Merkel announced that Germany would be strengthening innovative branches of the economy within the scope of its EU presidency. With a budget of 54 billion euros, the EU today already operates the world's largest research promotion program. Europe also needs a feasible joint patent law, Merkel said.

At transatlantic level, the EU aims to align technological standards. This will be a topic on the agenda of the EU-America summit scheduled for the end of April.

March 15, 2007

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