<TITLE: Applications of Economics: Czech Republic's Economy and Entrepreneurial Environment
ACADEMIC DOMAIN: economics and administration
DISCIPLINE: economics
EVENT TYPE: seminar presentation
FILE ID: USEMP08B
NOTES: continuation of and continued in USEMD170, seminar also includes ULEC070 and USEMP08A

RECORDING DURATION: 19 min 2 sec

RECORDING DATE: 25.4.2006

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 8

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 2

S1: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Czech; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 51-over

S6: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: German; ACADEMIC ROLE: undergraduate; GENDER: male; AGE: 17-23

SU: unidentified speaker

SS: several simultaneous speakers>


<S6> <USING POWERPOINT> so welcome everybody to my erm short presentation about germany and the effects on the health economy my name is <NAME S6> i come from the north comes from i come from the northern part of germany and i study at the university of applied science in heide it's a city 100 kilometres erm erm over hamburg so i study next to the north sea nearly ten minutes by by car to the north sea so it's a really nice place to study and yeah let's have a look first of all the basic facts germany erm i think everybody know this country @@ germany is europe's most populat- populated nation and rank among erm the leading economic powers in the world in spite of the the high cost of re- unification in 1990 erm situated also like the czech republic erm in the heart of europe <SS> @@ </SS> i think it's i think it's every every time we have this discussion who lives really in the heart of europe er i think it's it must be near the border between czech and germany so we can say also we are living in the heart of europe and erm yeah germany covers a land mass about 350,000 square kilometres erm borders on nine neighbour countries and is home to around 82.5 million people 7.3 million of them are foreigners and erm of course it's er it's a really it's a really dif- difficult part also in germany to erm erm to become them an integral part of the erm german society but we try to get them in but erm i know there are a lot of problems erm with the integration of these foreign foreigners it might be a sometimes the germans it might be a er er a lot of times also the foreigners who don't want to be a part of the country and i think er yeah this is a , problem yeah the popul- population density is about 231 inhabitants per square kilometre in comparison with the czech republic it's 100 inhabitants per square kilometre more , er yeah maybe so- maybe a few sentences about the history i think everybody know that erm in 1949 after and in the aftermath of the second world war the allies divided germany into two parts erm the western part erm where (i'm) from the german federal republic and operated in the free market system and soon joined the european union and the NATO and the eastern part the german democratic erm republic erm followed socialist i- ideals and were the member of the warsaw pact in 1990 er the peaceful yeah a peaceful revolution led erm to the led to the re- reunification of the two parts and and then the brandenburg gate in germ- er in berlin erm (gets) a symbol of peace and freedom in germany er er in berlin sorry in berlin is erm now erm the modern and also the ancient capital city of erm germany erm with the highest population of 3.5 million habitants so nearly 75 per cent of finland @@ so , let's have a look of germany's position in the world economy and (as was) third strongest national economy erm germany holds a leading position in terms of erm its total economic output erm with the highest gross domestic product and the largest number of inhabitants in the european union is the most impo- most important most important market in europe mhm , in global trading of goods and services erm the federal republic of germany is erm in the second place erm after the USA erm germany stands out at the busin- as a centre of erm business through its innovative and internationally active companies who at the moment spread of course also in the eastern part of europe and yeah germany stands also for well-paid and motivated employees erm internationally recognised education systems and yeah er i think a really good developed infrastru- infrastructure (makes) in some parts of germany too much infrastructure er but erm the government puts a lot of money in this erm in this project and yeah this @@ mhm yeah of course erm erm because of geographical erm erm because of geographical location germany is erm er is of er is an interface erm between new markets in the (south) or eastern europe and yeah mhm yeah let's talk about erm our we are world champion not in football maybe in the summer but i i'm not really sure <SU> @@ </SU> erm @@ but we are world leader in export goods erm in front of the U- USA erm we export erm here's i here's some facts yeah one in three euros in germany is generated through exports and nearly one in four jobs depends on exports so you see erm how important the export is for the german employees and also the german companies erm in 2005 germany's for- foreign trade surplus total was 160 billion erm euros yeah . mhm but i want to say little bit later something about the exports and the imports and the trade so <HUMMING> yeah let's talk a little bit about the indust- er about the most important branches in germany erm yeah we are one of the erm world's leading industrial nations erm in the last years erm , in the last years erm we have especially in erm <P:07> okay er no between the in the last years for example the erm the share of the totally new production in the autom- automobile industry grows up from 48 per cent to 52 per cent and erm yeah in the machine construction erm from 42 to 44 per cent and s- so you can see that there is a lot of erm production but erm it's we also have to remember that erm lot of erm big german companies erm move move to the east because of the erm high costs of erm social yeah of health and social insurance and the high cost of wages erm we heard this in your presentation that the costs in the eastern part in the czech republic and also slovakia and when you go more east erm there are the wages much more lower and erm this is in yeah this is erm this is a big problem i think for the big companies in germany <HUMMING> yeah and we are the third erm world's third largest largest automobile producer er but (xx) with more than 70 per cent of vehicles produced er for the export so we produce a lot but we export also a lot and this shows again how important the export is for our country <HUMMING> yeah here's here i have some information about also other erm branches erm the w- we are the world leader in the chemical industry and erm also our erm innovative sectors are growing at the moment especially the and the re- the renewable energies as well as information technologies and biotechnologies are growing and yeah this could be erm good sectors to invest , mhm let's go on yeah here i listed some of the erm macroeconomic indicators and environment for 2005 erm and here you can see our GDP erm erm in total is over 2.2 trillion dollars and it's ranked on the fifth place in the world and erm when you of of course it's much better when you see it per head so the GDP per capita is about 30,000 dollars and it's i think on the i don't know , i i don't know which place but er it's er nearly 10,000 dollars more than erm in the czech republic and when you you can divide erm the GDP by sectors and so you can see also again erm which big part the industry part erm (has) about 30 per cent that and the agricultural first er primary sector is er 1.1 per cent of the GDP and also the erm third sector erm about (17) per cent is erm it's grown it it has grown in the last erm erm years and of and of course very important for the german er economy yeah now here you will see erm erm the GDP growth we discussed this also for the czech republic erm when you er when i i'm right we had er six per cent in 2005 yeah <S1> y- yes </S1> it was six per cent and we had in the last year only er 0.9 of course we know that we are in a higher level <S1> [mhm] </S1> [than maybe] the czech republic and of course er it's not bad but it's not really good erm @@ because when you see the last years we have a a real stagna- er stagnation in germany and especially after the reui- reunification which in my opinion is a a good thing for germany but of course it was erm erm difficult for the economy because the the costs at the were so high and of course this this is a big problem and yeah i will (see to it) later we estimated in 2006 for two per cent because we have erm the last year we we had changes in our erm in our government and erm erm we you you can see when you follow the german economy in the last half year that there er is the the it well it it goes up @@ but we will see i i think i think two is is high maybe 1.5 should be good but (or) when you see the last five years it was only it was also before in th- three years we had minus growth and now we'll be getting better but we will see let's see after the year and the rate of inf- inflation i think it's not a big problem two per cent it's quite normal and i think it's european average erm yeah the rate of unemployment is a little bit higher than in the czech republic i think the czech republic was about nine per cent we have about 11.1 in the end of er or i i'm not so sure about the right number but i think it's must be between 11 and 12 and of course this is also it was a big problem (would have) it is a big problem erm when you discuss the last the last 16 years after the reunification erm because when you divide it erm germany when you divide it again sorry about this but if you if you divide it in the western part and the eastern part erm and see the different rates for unemployment the east er in the eastern part it's er much higher and about erm like 15 per cent and the the the west part is erm nearly eight per cent and so you can see where are the problems in our country and of course erm the reunification is a good thing i think it's really good but i and for personal feeling but it's it's not really easy to (handle it) so yeah er i think we had this erm number yesterday about the public debt erm i think when we talk about this about the czech republic (it was) about 39 per cent and we have here or 30 per cent i'm not sure erm we have here in the 60 or nearly 60 per cent like the (mastery criteria) and yeah <S1> mhm </S1> it is of course it is a lot i i think there are more there are a lot of erm countries who have more percentage than us well i think we have also sometimes some problems with our debt to fill in the (mastery criteria) and get some new (letters) from brussels @@ @i think@ yeah (xx) nearby it's it's hard discussions and yeah but i think there are we can handle it i'm not sure but we can handle it so at somehow a little bit about the income taxes from natural persons i think it's erm it is higher in in the it was higher than compared with the czech republic (we are here) 15 per cent to 42 per cent erm i'm not sure could be that the that the government i'm not sure that they want to do it or they have done it and they want to do it higher i think 49 or the i think 48 i'm not sure they want to do it a little bit higher erm but we will see erm i think there's <CLICKING HIS TONGUE> yeah for corporate gains i'm not (listed) sorry for this it is about 25 per cent in germany i think erm yeah and now here's a big problem er of course the social and health care insurance is 46 per cent and this is erm this is a main fact for erm companies to , to to move east er because er yeah it's erm erm the 46 per cent will be divided and 50 per cent of the 46 er must be paid by the employee and 50 per cent by the employer and erm of course (of) all high wages or higher wages because the (xx) (standards) are er higher than in the czech republic it's er the money a lot of er it's it's a lot of money to to to put in the social and health care insurance for the companies and of course they want to produce their products cheap and erm yeah this is a big problem and well always discussed in germany yeah we will see and i also look about the HDE index we discussed it for er or we we saw in the czech presentation the ranking and i think finland was on the 13th i'm not sure er and we are erm exactly in the middle between czech and finland so yeah and also er (i'm really interested) okay let's my last slide is about export and import and the trading partners er we heard in the in the presentation about the czech republic that erm erm we are the most important export and import partner of the czech republic erm but of course it's not erm all @@ for you (xx) (for us) because we have er a lot of more erm partners and erm it it's a growing part the east the east european part but erm unfortunately or erm erm the erm the statistics are little bit different so we can see that erm erm in 2003 er the main partners erm was the main import and export partner (of) france was erm nearly ten per cent and and also i was a little bit wondering when i saw the numbers because i erm saw a lot of belgium and netherlands and i say okay belgium and and belgium is nearly the same size like the czech republic or maybe a little bit bigger i i don't know really er but erm then i read a little bit and we we get a lot of erm erm food from belgium and the netherlands and from the ag- agricultural sector so erm erm this might be the reason because these parts are so high in both parts in imports and in exports and also you can see that we are erm we we are we're getting more imports from china than we export them there and yeah you can see that we have a positive trade balance erm of about 200,000 no two i'm sorry 200 billion 200 billion US dollar in the last year i think the import and export numbers are from 2005 the others have been published (a little bit late) so yeah it's (like) i hope i hope they can (compare) that they can stay in this position but we will see what happens </S6>
<S1> okay thank you </S1>
