Call for public investment

BDI President Markus Kerber told German public radio Wednesday that the German government should spend more money on public infrastructure, especially now that the public treasury is running a surplus.

"The money is available," Kerber said. "What's needed now is to increase the proportion of public spending that goes toward infrastructure investment."

Kerber called for more money to be spent on schools, broadband networks, and improved electricity transmission networks, among other things.

"We're at the threshold of the digitalization of our economy," Kerber said. "That's one area where we need to significantly improve public infrastructure."

Kerber warned against spending even more money on social welfare payments, saying that the German state had already reached a very high level in that regard.

He underlined that companies were willing to invest more money in infrastructure and capacity, but for that to happen, governments would have to make preparatory investments in public infrastructure.

Federal, state and municipal authorities taken together brought in 16.1 billion euros more than they spent in the first half of 2014. That's the largest budget surplus since German reunification in 1990. It's the third year in a row that the German public sector, taken as a whole, has run a fiscal surplus.

nz/ng (Reuters, Deutschlandfunk)