BERLIN FOREVER!


Berlin is planning, building, booming. Today people want more than just a foot in the door, they want a firm foothold. This is reflected in the tremendous number of industrial and service companies opting to make Berlin a base for their business.
There are good reasons for this. For one, Berlin offers unique growth potential. The city is Europe's crossroads for commerce and trade - between Stockholm and Trieste, between Madrid, Paris and Moscow. Berlin is the gateway to a lively Eastern European marketplace, a fascinating meeting point, a dynamic conference address and an animated trade fair venue. Berlin is a city of the world.
But the list doesen't stop there. The people of Berlin love their green city and the many parks and lakes of the Berlin-Brandenburg region. Berlin is also home, a place where people live, work and play.
We are shaping Berlin into a high-powered capital with quality of life. Business, politics and government are joining forces to achieve our common goals; optimal security for Berlin's residents, comprehensive, state-of-the-art services with people in mind and a good framework for industrial endeavours.
Berlin has a big future ahead of it. Our city is a key location for science and research, offering a wide selection of highprofile educational institutions. Berlin stimulates the senses with its unique diversity of cultural life and its rich and mixture of art, theatre and music. Being part of Berlin means being part of the global village and the future...
Berlin invites you to join in - and extends the warmest of welcomes.
Berlin - The business city
Over 400 times a year, business people and trade visitors from across the globe make this venue centre of their world. Berlin is fast becomning an East-West business hub as never before. For western market players, the place to touch base with Central and Eastern Europe - for eastern companies, the spot to display their products to the western business world.
"People of the world, look at this city!" exclaimed Ernst Reuter, mayor of West Berlin in 1948 at the height of the Berlin blockade.
Today people of all nationalities are not only looking at Berlin but taking their money and investing heavily in Berlin. Business is booming, the infrastructure growing. Companies are relocating to Germany's new capital. Berlin is hailed everywhere as the new "gateway to the East".
Berlin is on its way to becoming Europe's new business capital.
And once again a Berlin mayor - Governing Mayor Eberhard Diepgen - is calling on the people of the world. But this time the appeal goes out to the world's busniess community, investors, R & D organizations, biotechnology firms and other cutting-edge companies - to invest in the future of Europe by coming to Berlin.
One of the big building projects currently underway is Daimler-Benz' huge new headquarters for its subsidiary DEBIS. As Manfred Gentz, the Daimler-Benz board member spearheading the project, putts it: "Berlin is the ideal location for internationally oriented companies. Here we have the perfect set-up for conveying Western know how to our Eastern European managers."
Another large complex is going up at the historic Checkpoint Charlie site: the American Business Center. Developer Mark Palmer sees great prospects for Berlin: "Berlin is the right place for anyone focused on the New Europe rather than the Old Europe. That's why I'm here. By being in Berlin I can live in the West and operate in the East."
While construction may lead the way for the rest of the decade, high-tech, automation, R & D, telecommunications and the ever-growing services industry will be Berlin's leading busniess in the next century. This is why more companies, national and international, are convering on Germany's new capital every day. Global players including such firms as IBM, Sony, Elf Minol, Samsung and AT&T, plus numerous Japanese banks and a number of top American law firms, are already on the Spree.
One strong beliver in Berlin has been part of its business life for nearly 150 years - and remains committed to its future. Siemens was founded in 1847 by a young entrepreneur named Werner Siemens; today the company employes some 375 000 people around the world, with nearly 20 000 in Berlin alone. Siemens has high hopes for the traffic engineering market. The company recently moved its transportation headquarters from Erlangen to Berlin - because Berlin is not only the biggest European market for traffic technology into the next millennium, but also home base for the sector's leading industrial concerns and the research institutes with which they work.
Werner Siemens' entrepreneurial spirit is being rekinkled in the Berlin of today. Who can say which of its new start-ups will prove to be the Siemens of the coming century?
Companies putting down stakes in Berlin are not only swept up by this pioneering spirit - they also profit from a highly trained, highly motivated pool of workers. The city provides a workforce where more than 55% of all employees have completed a skilled vocational programme. "There is a real quality base of workers here," enthuses Reginald Moore, Chief Engineer for Rolls Royce/BMW. "And their quality background makes for our quality products."
Many others will be following the government to Berlin very shortly, with powerful momentum in tow. The city will also become the stamping ground of countless new consultants, lobbyists and lawyers. The services industry is taking off and will be a real hot spot of business, Berlin-style. Sony's Edgar van Ommen waxes lyrical when he reflects on the future: "Berlin is the right place at the right time. We're flying high - and the sky's the limit." I am just as enthusiastic as the many managers and entrepreneurs I met. Berlin will be more than a major European business city - Berlin will become the business capital of Europe.
As I walked down Unter den Linden on my last trip to Berlin, I knew that this beautiful avenue will one day surely rival Paris' Champs Elyseč as the major business street in Europe. And if you ask me, that day is just around the corner.
The Future
Investors, planners and politicians are venturing upon a major investment scheme. WISTA - the Adlershof scientific and business park - occupies 76 hectares in southeast Berlin. Nine hundred million DM are going into this technology complex, one of Europe's biggest, which will house 180 institutes and companies and already lodges accommodates more than 3000 scientists and engineers. WISTA's research capacity will swell even more once the natural sciences factulty of Berlin's Humbolt University is also firmly ensconced in Adlershof.
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