Global rivalries, corporate interests and Germany’s ‘National Industrial Strategy 2030’

Figures & data

Table 1. Strategic options of Germany’s foreign economic policy towards China.

	Mercantilism	Liberalism
Defensive	NIS 2030	free trade/multilateralism
Offensive	coercive decoupling	‘reciprocal’ liberalization

Table 2. Forbes Global 2000 National Profit Shares in Key Sectors, 2019.

Sector	Germany Profit Share	China Profit Share	US Profit Share
Chemical industry	6%	3%	40%
Mechanical engineering	6%	10%	28%
Electrical engineering	1%	2%	53%
Automotive industry	29%	8%	12%

Note: The above sectors are aggregated from the Forbes Global 2000 sectors as follows — Chemical Industry (Diversified Chemicals; Specialized Chemicals; Biotech; Pharmaceuticals); Mechanical Engineering (Conglomerates [minus real estate and trading company firms]; Heavy Equipment; Other Industrial Equipment); Electrical Engineering (Business Products & Supplies; Communications Equipment; Computer Hardware; Computer Storage Devices; Consumer Electronics; Electric Equipment; Electronics; Semiconductors); Automotive Industry (Auto & Truck Manufacturers; Auto & Truck Parts).

Source: Forbes Global 2000, author’s calculations.

Table 3. Expected sectoral support for NIS 2030, ranked highest to lowest.

Rank	Sector	Involvement with China		Competitiveness with China
		Exports	FDI	National Export Share	National Profit Share
1	Chemical industry	low	low	low	high
2	Electrical engineering	high	high	low	low
3	Mechanical engineering	high	medium	high	low
4	Automotive industry	high	medium	high	high

Figure 1. German exports to China, percentage of combined exports to France and US, by sector.

Source: UN Comtrade; VDMA (various annual issues) Maschinenbau in Zahl und Bild

Figure 2. Host country share of German FDI by investing sector, 2019.

Source: Deutsche Bundesbank (2022) Direktinvestitionsstatistiken: Statistische Fachreihe.

Figure 3. Country share in global ‘high-tech’ exports, by product.

Note: Calculations based on the classification and aggregation of ‘high-technology’ product groups used by Eurostat (dividing research and development expenditure by total sales) in its indicators on high-tech industry and knowledge-intensive services (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Archive:High-tech_statistics_-_economic_data#Trade_in_high-tech_products). For the automotive industry, the new product class (available since 2017) ‘motor vehicles powered by electric motors only’ (HS 870380) is used, as first calculated by Daniel Workman: http://www.worldstopexports.com/electric-cars-exports-by-country/

Source: UN Comtrade (SITC Rev. 4 & HS 2017)

Data availability statement

The primary data that support the findings of this study are derived from resources available in the public domain. URLs to the original source are provided.