Word: berlin
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...bananas, so popular when the Wall first came down, to consumer electronics and cars. Everywhere, new brand names began to beckon: Panasonic, Miele, Zanussi. Magdeburg became Marlboro country. The West German chain Spar opened a supermarket 40 km east of the border and stocked it with Western goods. East Berlin got its Benetton...
...sudden influx of bankers is an encouraging sign, the East has cause to hope. Anyone entering the lobby of a luxury hotel there these days is greeted by an array of signs proclaiming the presence of representative offices of well-known Western banks. Those in East Berlin's Grand Hotel include the WestLB, Algemene Bank Nederland, Bayerische Landesbank and Salomon Brothers. Peter Dahne, WestLB's representative for the G.D.R., has set up offices in seven other G.D.R. cities, and will soon move into permanent quarters with a < staff of around 50, drawn initially from WestLB's West German employees. Says...
...long tradition of smaller, specialized industrial companies before the command economy crushed them. It was only in 1972 that a final wave of nationalization swept the last 12,000 firms into state conglomerates. About half of them have already demanded to be reprivatized. Officials in Bonn and Berlin hope the spark of entrepreneurial talent can be rekindled with loans from European Recovery Program funds. Demand is high. An initial allocation of $3.5 billion has already been handed out, and a replenishment of the pot is planned...
...unknown in the equation is the amount of direct aid that West German taxpayers will have to pay out to prop up the East's economy. Figures as high as $60 billion a year over the next few years have been mooted; the DIW economic forecasting institute in West Berlin expects $30 billion annually. Bonn has already put together a war chest of about $70 billion for & eventualities. Among other things, Bonn inherits a large G.D.R. budget deficit and foreign currency debt of around $13 billion. At the same time, the special aid to West Berlin that West Germany provided...
Everything depends on how the East German economy responds to a free-market jump start. Pohl points out that "no one can subsidize uneconomic jobs in the G.D.R. forever." Elmar Pieroth, a prominent West Berlin politician and businessman who advises the G.D.R government, insists, "The spirit of entrepreneurship is reappearing, and people are eager to take advantage of the possibilities." That was the kind of spirit that created the Wirtschaftswunder...