Statistical information Germany 1992

Germany in the World

Germany - Introduction 1992

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Background: Germany_first united in 1871_suffered defeats in successive world wars and was occupied by the victorious Allied powers of the US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union in 1945. With the beginning of the Cold War and increasing tension between the US and Soviet Union, two German states were formed in 1949:the western Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the eastern German Democratic Republic (GDR). The newly democratic FRG embedded itself in key Western economic and security organizations, the EU and NATO, while the Communist GDR was on the front line of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. The decline of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War cleared the path for the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and German re-unification in 1990. Germany has expended considerable funds; roughly $100 billion a year; in subsequent years working to bring eastern productivity and wages up to western standards, with mixed results. Unemployment which in the east is nearly double that in the west; has grown over the last several years, primarily as a result of structural problems like an inflexible labor market.

Germany - Geography 1992

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Location

Geographic coordinates

Map reference

Area
Total: 356,910 km²
Land: 349,520 km²; comprises the formerly separate Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic, and Berlin following formal unification on 3 October 1990
Comparative: slightly smaller than Montana

Land boundaries:

3,790 km; Austria 784 km, Belgium 167 km,
Czechoslovakia 815 km, Denmark 68 km, France 451 km, Luxembourg 138 km,
Netherlands 577 km, Poland 456 km, Switzerland 334 km

Coastline: 2,389 km

Maritime claims
Continental shelf: 200 m (depth) or to depth of exploitation
Exclusive fishing zone: 200 nm
Territorial sea: North Sea and Schleswig-Holstein coast of Baltic Sea - 3 nm (extends, at one point, to 16 nm in the Helgolander Bucht); remainder of Baltic Sea - 12 nm
Disputes:

the boundaries of Germany were set by the Treaty on the Final
Settlement With Respect to Germany signed 12 September 1990 in Moscow by the
Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic, France, the
United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union; this Treaty entered into force on 15 March 1991; a subsequent Treaty between Germany and Poland, reaffirming the German-Polish boundary, was signed on 14 November 1990 and took effect on 16 January 1992

Climate: temperate and marine; cool, cloudy, wet winters and summers; occasional warm, tropical foehn wind; high relative humidity

Terrain: lowlands in north, uplands in center, Bavarian Alps in south

Elevation

Natural resources: iron ore, coal, potash, timber, lignite, uranium, copper, natural gas, salt, nickel

Land use

Land use: arable land: 34%; permanent crops: 1%; meadows and pastures 16%; forest and woodland 30%; other 19%; includes irrigated 1%

Irrigated land

Major rivers

Major watersheds area km²

Total water withdrawal

Total renewable water resources

Natural hazards

Geography

Germany - People 1992

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Population: 80,387,283 (July 1992), growth rate 0.5% (1992)

Nationality: noun - German(s; adjective - German

Ethnic groups: primarily German; small Danish and Slavic minorities

Languages: German

Religions: Protestant 45%, Roman Catholic 37%, unaffiliated or other 18%

Demographic profile

Age structure

Age structure

Dependency ratios

Median age

Population growth rate

Birth rate: 11 births/1000 population (1992)

Death rate: 11 deaths/1000 population (1992)

Net migration rate: 5 migrants/1000 population (1992)

Population distribution

Urbanization

Major urban areas

Environment
Current issues: air and water pollution; groundwater, lakes, and air quality in eastern Germany are especially bad; significant deforestation in the eastern mountains caused by air pollution and acid rain
Current issues note: strategic location on North European Plain and along the entrance to the Baltic Sea

Air pollutants

Sex ratio

Mothers mean age at first birth

Maternal mortality ratio

Infant mortality rate: 7 deaths/1000 live births (1992)

Life expectancy at birth: 73 years male, 79 years female (1992)

Total fertility rate: 1.4 children born/woman (1992)

Contraceptive prevalence rate

Drinking water source

Current health expenditure

Physicians density

Hospital bed density

Sanitation facility access

Hiv/Aids

Major infectious diseases

Obesity adult prevalence rate

Alcohol consumption

Tobacco use

Children under the age of 5 years underweight

Education expenditures

Literacy: 99% (male NA%, female NA%) age 15 and over can read and write (1970 est.)

School life expectancy primary to tertiary education

Youth unemployment

Germany - Government 1992

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Country name
Conventional long form: Federal Republic of Germany

Government type: federal republic

Capital: Berlin; note - the shift from Bonn to Berlin will take place over a period of years with Bonn retaining many administrative functions and several ministries

Administrative divisions:

16 states (lander, singular - land);
Baden-Wurttemberg, Bayern, Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen, Hamburg, Hessen,
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Niedersachsen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Rheinland-Pfalz,
Saarland, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein, Thuringen

Dependent areas

Independence:

18 January 1871 (German Empire unification); divided into four zones of occupation (UK, US, USSR, and later, France) in 1945 following
World War II; Federal Republic of Germany (FRG or West Germany) proclaimed 23 May 1949 and included the former UK, US, and French zones; German
Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany) proclaimed 7 October 1949 and included the former USSR zone; unification of West Germany and East Germany took place 3 October 1990; all four power rights formally relinquished 15
March 1991

National holiday: German Unity Day, 3 October (1990)

Constitution: 23 May 1949, provisional constitution known as Basic Law

Legal system: civil law system with indigenous concepts; judicial review of legislative acts in the Federal Constitutional Court; has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction

International law organization participation

Citizenship

Suffrage: universal at age 18
Federal Diet:

last held 2 December 1990 (next to be held October 1994); results - CDU 36.7%, SPD 33.5%, FDP 11.0%, CSU 7.1%, Green Party (West
Germany) 3.9%, PDS 2.4%, Republikaner 2.1%, Alliance 90/Green Party (East
Germany) 1.2%, other 2.1%; seats - (662 total, 656 statutory with special rules to allow for slight expansion) CDU 268, SPD 239, FDP 79, CSU 51, PDS 17, Alliance 90/Green Party (East Germany) 8; note - special rules for this election allowed former East German parties to win seats if they received at least 5% of vote in eastern Germany

Communists: West - about 40,000 members and supporters; East - about 200,000 party members (December 1991)

Executive branch: president, chancellor, Cabinet

Legislative branch: bicameral parliament (no official name for the two chambers as a whole) consists of an upper chamber or Federal Council (Bundesrat) and a lower chamber or Federal Diet (Bundestag)

Judicial branch: Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht)

Political parties and leaders

International organization participation:

AfDB, AG (observer), AsDB, BDEAC, BIS, CCC, CE, CERN, COCOM,
CSCE, EBRD, EC, ECE, EIB, ESA, FAO, G-5, G-7, G-10, GATT, IADB, IAEA, IBRD,
ICAO, ICC, ICFTU, IDA, IEA, IFAD, IFC, ILO, IMF, IMO, INMARSAT, INTELSAT,
INTERPOL, IOC, IOM, ISO, ITU, LORCS, NATO, NEA, OAS (observer), OECD, PCA,
UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UNHCR, UPU, WEU, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO

Diplomatic representation:

Ambassador Dr. Immo STABREIT will become
Ambassador in late summer/early fall 1992; Chancery at 4,645 Reservoir Road
NW, Washington, DC 20,007; telephone (202) 298-4,000; there are German
Consulates General in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and New York, and Consulates in Miami and
New Orleans

US:

Ambassador Robert M. KIMMITT; Embassy at Deichmanns Avenue, 5,300
Bonn 2 (mailing address is APO AE 9,080); telephone 49 (228) 3,391; there is a US Branch Office in Berlin and US Consulates General in Frankfurt,
Hamburg, Leipzig, Munich, and Stuttgart

Diplomatic representation

Flag description

: three equal horizontal bands of black (top), red, and yellow

National symbols

National anthem

National heritage

Germany - Economy 1992

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Economy overview:

The Federal Republic of Germany is making substantial progress in integrating and modernizing eastern Germany, but at a heavy economic cost. Western Germany's growth in 1991 slowed to 3.1% - the lowest rate since 1987 - because of slack world growth and higher interest rates and taxes required by the unification process. While western Germany's economy was in recession in the last half of 1991, eastern Germany's economy bottomed out after a nearly two-year freefall and shows signs of recovery, particularly in the construction, transportation, and service sectors.
Eastern Germany could begin a fragile recovery later, concentrated in 1992 in construction, transportation, and services. The two regions remain vastly different, however, despite eastern Germany's progress. Western Germany has an advanced market economy and is a world leader in exports. It has a highly urbanized and skilled population that enjoys excellent living standards, abundant leisure time, and comprehensive social welfare benefits. Western

Germany is relatively poor in natural resources coal being the most important mineral. Western Germany's worldclass companies manufacture technologically advanced goods. The region's economy is mature:

services and manufacturing account for the dominant share of economic activity, and raw materials and semimanufactured goods constitute a large portion of imports.
In recent years, manufacturing has accounted for about 31% of GDP, with other sectors contributing lesser amounts. Gross fixed investment in 1990 accounted for about 21% of GDP. In 1991, GDP in the western region was an estimated $19,200 per capita. In contrast, eastern Germany's economy is shedding the obsolete heavy industries that dominated the economy during the
Communist era. Eastern Germany's share of all-German GDP is only about 7%, and eastern productivity is just 30% that of the west. The privatization agency for eastern Germany, the Treuhand, is rapidly selling many of the 11,500 firms under its control. The pace of private investment is starting to pick up, but questions about property rights and environmental liabilities remain. Eastern Germany has one of the world's largest reserves of low-grade lignite coal but little else in the way of mineral resources.
The quality of statistics from eastern Germany is improving, yet many gaps remain; the federal government began producing all-German data for select economic statistics at the start of 1992. The most challenging economic problem is promoting eastern Germany's economic reconstruction - specifically, finding the right mix of fiscal, monetary, regulatory, and tax policies that will spur investment in eastern Germany - without destabilizing western Germany's economy or damaging relations with West
European partners. The biggest danger is that excessive wage settlements and heavy federal borrowing could fuel inflation and prompt the German Central
Bank, the Bundesbank, to keep a tight monetary policy to choke off a wage-price spiral. Meanwhile, the FRG has been providing billions of dollars to help the former Soviet republics and the reformist economies of Eastern
Europe.

GDP: purchasing power equivalent - Federal Republic of Germany: $1,331.4 billion, per capita $16,700; real growth rate 0.7%; western Germany: 1,235.8 billion, per capita $19,200; real growth rate 3.1%; eastern Germany 95.6 billion, per capita $5,870; real growth rate - 30% (1991 est.)

Real gdp purchasing power parity

Real gdp growth rate

Real gdp per capita

Gross national saving

Gdp composition by sector of origin

Gdp composition by end use

Gdp composition by sector of origin

Agriculture products: West - accounts for about 2% of GDP (including fishing and forestry; diversified crop and livestock farming; principal crops and livestock include potatoes, wheat, barley, sugar beets, fruit, cabbage, cattle, pigs, poultry; net importer of food; fish catch of 202,000 metric tons in 1987; East - accounts for about 10% of GDP (including fishing and forestry; principal crops - wheat, rye, barley, potatoes, sugar beets, fruit; livestock products include pork, beef, chicken, milk, hides and skins; net importer of food; fish catch of 193,600 metric tons in 1987

Industries: West - among world's largest producers of iron, steel, coal, cement, chemicals, machinery, vehicles, machine tools, electronics; food and beverages; East - metal fabrication, chemicals, brown coal, shipbuilding, machine building, food and beverages, textiles, petroleum refining

Industrial production growth rate: growth rates, West - 5.4% (1990; East - 30% (1991 est.)

Labor force: 36,750,000; industry 41%, agriculture 6%, other 53% (1987)
Organized labor: 47% of labor force (1986 est.)

Labor force

Unemployment rate: West - 6.3% (1991; East - 11% (1991)

Youth unemployment

Population below poverty line

Gini index

Household income or consumption by percentage share

Distribution of family income gini index

Budget:

West (federal, state, local) - revenues $684 billion; expenditures $704 billion, including capital expenditures $NA (1990), East -
NA

Taxes and other revenues

Public debt

Revenue

Fiscal year: calendar year

Inflation rate consumer prices

Central bank discount rate

Commercial bank prime lending rate

Stock of narrow money

Stock of broad money

Stock of domestic credit

Market value of publicly traded shares

Current account balance

Exports: West - $324.3 billion (f.o.b., 1989)
Commodoties: manufactures 86.6% (including machines and machine tools, chemicals, motor vehicles, iron and steel products), agricultural products 4.9%, raw materials 2.3%, fuels 1.3%
Partners:

EC 53.3% (France 12.7%, Netherlands 8.3%, Italy 9.1%, UK 8.3%,
Belgium-Luxembourg 7.3%), other Western Europe 15.9%, US 7.1%, Eastern
Europe 4.1%, OPEC 2.7% (1990)

Imports: West - $346.5 billion (f.o.b., 1989)
Commodoties: manufactures 68.5%, agricultural products 12.0%, fuels 9.7%, raw materials 7.1%
Partners:

EC 51.7% (France 11.7%, Netherlands 10.1%, Italy 9.3%, UK 6.7%,
Belgium-Luxembourg 7.2%), other Western Europe 13.4%, US 6.6%, Eastern
Europe 3.8%, OPEC 2.5% (1990)

Reserves of foreign exchange and gold

Debt external

Stock of direct foreign investment at home

Stock of direct foreign investment abroad

Exchange rates: deutsche marks (DM) per US$1 - 1.6611 (March 1992), 1.6595 (1991), 1.6157 (1990), 1.8800 (1989), 1.7562 (1988), 1.7974 (1987)

Germany - Energy 1992

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Electricity
Production: 133,000,000 kW capacity; 580,000 million kWh produced, 7,390 kWh per capita (1991)

Coal

Petroleum

Crude oil

Refined petroleum

Natural gas

Carbon dioxide emissions

Energy consumption per capita

Germany - Communication 1992

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Telephones

Telephone system

Broadcast media

Internet

Broadband fixed subscriptions

Germany - Military 1992

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Military expenditures
Percent of gdp:

exchange rate conversion - $39.5 billion, 2.5% of
GDP (1991)

Military and security forces

Military service age and obligation

Space program

Terrorist groups

Germany - Transportation 1992

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National air transport system

Civil aircraft registration country code prefix

Airports:

462 total, 455 usable; 242 with permanent-surface runways; 4
with runways over 3,659 m; 40
with runways 2,440-3,659 m; 55
with runways 1,220-2,439 m

Heliports

Pipelines: crude oil 3,644 km; petroleum products 3,946 km; natural gas 97,564 km (1988)

Railways

Roadways

Waterways:

West - 5,222 km, of which almost 70% are usable by craft of 1,000-metric ton capacity or larger; major rivers include the Rhine and Elbe; Kiel Canal is an important connection between the Baltic Sea and
North Sea; East - 2,319 km (1988)

Merchant marine:

607 ships (1,000 GRT or over) totaling 5,210,060
GRT/6,626,333 DWT; includes 3 passenger, 5 short-sea passenger, 324 cargo, 10 refrigerated cargo, 135 container, 31 roll-on/roll-off cargo, 5 railcar carrier, 6 barge carrier, 11 oil tanker, 21 chemical tanker, 22 liquefied gas tanker, 5 combination ore/oil, 14 combination bulk, 15 bulk; note - the
German register includes ships of the former East and West Germany; during 1991 the fleet underwent major restructuring as surplus ships were sold off

Civil air: 239 major transport aircraft

Ports and terminals

Germany - Transnational issues 1992

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Disputes international

Refugees and internally displaced persons

Illicit drugs