50 billion in investments that are being made in our country. That is a strong sign, and it puts Germany ahead. I just spoke about what is changing in our country right now. We see that growth is returning. That is good news. It is no reason to sit back or be complacent, but it should spur us on to take the next steps that make our country strong for the future, that make our country solid for the future, and that also enable us to make progress in Europe. And of course, as finance minister, I am preoccupied with how we now bring the 500 billion from the special fund into the country, and I am currently on my future tour through all of Germany. I see how the projects are being implemented on the ground, how investment is actually being made on the ground in research, in education, in day-care centers, in infrastructure. That is very good. And at the same time, I made it clear in my speech that we need more private investment, and that we need to work together on that. I, as finance minister, with public investment, and the companies in our country with private investment — to keep finding common ground. That is also a strength of the Made for Germany initiative, and that is why I am very glad to be here. I am grateful for what has been achieved, and I believe the three of us share the awareness that we want to move our country forward, and we are now working on that together.
Many thanks, Minister. We thank you for being here. We consider today an important milestone in Made for Germany. Launched a year ago, as the Minister said, today is a day with three representatives of the federal government: the Chancellor, the Vice-Chancellor, and the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs. That shows what we can achieve together and what we stand for together. The problems and challenges we face here can only be solved and handled together. We have talked a lot about reforms. We come out of this conversation with the Finance Minister very encouraged. We have of course also talked about how we finance these reforms, how we finance the investments. Here too, a clear commitment to the European capital market, and equally important, by the way, to the domestic capital market — and that is nothing other than the implementation of the pension reform. So we draw strength and courage from today. Many thanks for being here, and now we continue.
Yes, I will pick up on the topic of growth. We need growth again. Growth means that not every debate ends in a distributional fight, but that we talk about shaping things. In my view, we again need the two-comma growth. Growth has three major factors. The first is the use of working time — the amount of working time, which we need to increase, and in which we again bring people from outside into our country, recruit the best talents in the world, and put them to work. The second level is investments. We have also fought hard for that: 850 billion in investments, investments in new productive growth. Of course, a lot also goes into crumbling infrastructure, but we have to solve that too. And the last lever is clearly technology. That involves training and further education. We need to continue building our position there. We have truly wonderful researchers. We must continue investing in innovation, but of course also in technology. That also requires less regulation. We must bring industrial AI into Germany — that is a once-in-a-century opportunity we have — and bring it into our industries as quickly as possible. We have all the prerequisites: we have the data, we have the domain knowledge. And we can seize this opportunity if we tackle it quickly now.
Good, thank you very much.
Yes, short and decisive statements — we have just heard them from the initiator of the Made for Germany initiative, then from the head of Deutsche Bank, and from the head of the Federal Ministry of Finance. Those were clear statements, and that gives us — oh, I should say this too — we will continue shortly with Friedrich Merz, because a speech by the Chancellor is expected as the next program item around 5:30 p.m. But we have time to go deeper into what the initiative has just announced and where it currently stands, with the help of Markus Rudolf from the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management. That is how it is correctly said here in the studio. Nice to have you here, Professor Rudolf. So, what does Germany actually need more of — brains or money?
Well, both belong together somehow. Investments are directed toward the future. That means you spend money today and hope that it comes back somehow later. So you also need confidence. Some people say that half of the economy consists of psychology, and that is why this Made for Germany initiative certainly has two functions. One is actually to pool money that can be invested, and the other is to create confidence. That is just as important as the financial dimension. I see that the number of members of this initiative has more than doubled since its founding a good year ago — from around 60 to 147 currently. Is that a good sign? Well, that has been achieved.
That is absolutely a good sign. It shows that there is a certain attraction. An even better sign would of course be if one could prove that more was invested by these 147 companies than they would have invested without the initiative. That part is a bit more difficult, but at least going from 60 to 140 shows that the whole thing is working. And there are also — connected to that — roughly 50 billion more in funding commitments, but those are just commitments; not that much has actually flowed yet, right?
Actually, in 2025, 200 billion was invested by these companies. Of course, you have to know that investment happens anyway. In Germany, about 1,000 billion is invested per year — or at least in 2025 it was about 1,000 billion. 200 billion came from these companies, which were 61 at the beginning and are now 147. The question is, on the one hand, would they have invested less if they had not been part of the initiative? You don't know that exactly. But the other side is, of course, that investment always happens and must always happen, and 200 billion is a very significant share of the gross fixed capital formation, as it is called, that actually exists in Germany. And would they perhaps have — or to ask it the other way around — is part of the investment also the result of the state investing heavily and clearing the way there with the special funds?
Absolutely. Of these 1,000 billion, about 15% comes from the state, but 85% from private sources. And among the private sources, there is again a share that comes from companies whose headquarters are actually abroad, or from companies that are entirely abroad — you have to see it that way. The largest part of the foreign companies are European companies that actually invest here. But of the 1,000 billion, 150 comes from the state and 850 from private sources, and 200 from those that are part of the Made for Germany initiative.
And if we now put together a few current figures: the economic forecast has been raised to 1.3%. That sounds good, and it is much more than expected — more than double. Today, the inflation rate came out at 3.3%. That is quite a lot, but in this case, a lot in the negative sense. The unemployment figure also came out: 2.9 million, which has gone down a bit again. If you now put these three figures together and help someone like me understand them.
The 1.3% is good news. That is from the Ifo Institute. The other institutes have estimated similarly. That is almost one percent more than they had estimated in the summer — estimated in early summer. That is really good news. Of course, this special fund for infrastructure and climate protection has a great deal to do with it. State investments are pushing it along. But that is also somewhat the point of the whole thing. The idea is that state investments start and then private investments follow. So the economy is set in motion, and then it turns into sustainable economic growth. That has worked so far, at any rate. That is good news. The inflation rate of 3.3% is less good news. In Germany, it has a great deal to do with energy — or in Europe in general. Germany is right around the European average, just barely below it. When the fuel discount comes, that will probably dampen it a bit, but of course again only with additional costs. But the 3.3% naturally leads to collective bargaining agreements being concluded at higher levels, and that will at some point again have a negative effect on economic growth. But of course you have to know that the 1.3% is real economic growth. That means the inflation rate is then added on top of the economic growth.
So now let's widen the view a bit and look at the global uncertainties — I'll put it very gently. Let's look very concretely at the Strait of Hormuz, where not only energy supplies depend on it, but as we know, also food, fertilizer supplies, and all the routes that come from there. How does all this fit together when we now look at Germany and have the initiative in the background?
What characterizes Germany is that it is still extremely export-oriented. That is why it suffers so much from Donald Trump's tariffs. Against this background, the 1.3% should actually be rated even higher. But if you are export-oriented, you also need logistics routes. You have to get your ships somewhere to supply the countries. And if the Strait of Hormuz is closed, you have to take much longer routes or you have to take airplanes, which is much more expensive. So it is bad for Germany overall. For Europe too, by the way, because among the three major blocs — the USA, Europe, and China — Europe is the bloc that exports net, and America is the bloc that imports net. So we suffer more from it than the Americans, and we feel that in the stagnation that the European economies have experienced in recent years.
Now I come back to the Made for Germany initiative. The investments are supposed to happen here, in this country, by German but also by foreign companies. You just explained how that works. Where are these investments particularly needed? Where do you see that foundations have already been laid and are being deepened further?
Christian Seibing just said, I believe, that these AI investments are relatively important. When it comes to data centers, we are far, far behind the Americans — that is the basic prerequisite for investments. So we definitely have to catch up there. On the other hand, there is what is now called industrial AI. Those are robot applications, machine applications, things like that, where the Germans have traditionally been good. The Germans were always good at producing machines. Now they may be good at producing machines that are AI-controlled. That is really taking off now. That is a good thing. That is also part of the economic growth we are seeing. We mostly see the automotive industry, which is not doing so well, but apart from the automotive industry, there are really a few bright spots that are encouraging and that also lead us to expect this 1.3%.
So, now you have given me a cue — the automotive industry. We will talk about that right now, because, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to hear from the heart of the German automotive industry — to Volkswagen. VW announced today that it wants to tackle its collective bargaining agreements. The group wants to terminate a large part of these agreements at the end of the year. We heard from the VW board and also from the works council and the trade unions.
We had our review meeting today on our future collective bargaining agreement. Our goal is to position Volkswagen securely for the future, because only economically successful companies can offer secure jobs. That is why I particularly welcome the fact that we had the conversation today.
