P.M. BRIEFING : Businesses Sprout in Germany
BERLIN — More than 226,000 new private businesses were registered in eastern Germany in the first 10 months of this year, officials said today.
Klaus Solveen, head of the Economic Ministry’s eastern German office in Berlin, said the creation of new businesses accelerated after East and West Germany merged their economies on July 1 as a prelude to political union on Oct. 3.
A total of 226,652 businesses were registered by Oct. 31, more than a quarter of them in the depressed industrial state of Saxony, Solveen told the German press agency ADN.
About 113,000 of the new businesses were restaurants and retail outlets, while 33,000 were involved in handicrafts and 2,000 were related to tourism.
Revival of small- and medium-sized business in formerly Communist eastern Germany is viewed as crucial to turning around an economy floundering from mass shutdowns of state-owned industry.
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