A German business leader, Nicole Grünewald, the President of the Industry and Commerce Chamber of Cologne (IHK Köln), disagrees with the statement made by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) that there is no deindustrialization in Germany. Grünewald told the Business Insider portal that “it’s a problem for our economy that an incumbent chancellor denies a running deindustrialization.”
The numbers speak a clear language, Grünewald said, “29 percent of the companies that are internationally active want to expand their foreign locations. At the same time, 34 percent want to reduce their investments in Germany. That means: our companies are relocating their investments abroad.” “Germany is experiencing deindustrialization” Grünewald emphasized. Scholz had said in a TV duel with Friedrich Merz on Sunday that the mood in the economy is bad, but there is no deindustrialization.
Grünewald holds the government of the coalition led by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) responsible for the stuttering economy. “We need reliability. More than half of our companies now say that they no longer have trust in politics. That’s something we’ve never seen: the economy perceives politics as a risk factor for the location of Germany” Grünewald said to Business Insider. The IHK Köln represents around 150,000 companies from the region, making it the largest industry and commerce chamber in North Rhine-Westphalia and the fourth largest in Germany.