Economy

Imports
$1.34 trillion (2021). Cars ($71.1B), Vaccines, blood, antisera, toxins and cultures ($41.6B), Motor vehicles; parts and accessories (8701 to 8705) ($41.1B), Packaged Medicaments ($32.3B), and Crude Petroleum ($29.2B), importing mostly from China ($134B), Netherlands ($129B), Poland ($89.4B), Italy ($78.4B), and France ($74.1B).

In 2021, Germany was the world’s biggest importer of Nitrogen Heterocyclic Compounds ($12.7B), Cheese ($5.25B), Reaction and Catalytic Products ($5.02B), Large Flat-Rolled Stainless Steel ($4.68B), and Ball Bearings ($4.55B).

Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of  age)
• 100% have an account with a financial institution
• 45.7% have a credit card
• 81% make online purchases

Ease of doing business
It is very easy to conduct business (rated 79.7 out of 100) ranked 13th out of 44 OECD high income countries and ranked 22th out of 190 countries worldwide (2022, World Bank).

Exports
$1.56 trillion (2021). Cars ($135B), Packaged Medicaments ($64.6B), Motor vehicles; parts and accessories (8701 to 8705) ($64.5B), Vaccines, blood, antisera, toxins and cultures ($45.6B), and Planes, Helicopters, and/or Spacecraft ($21.2B), exporting mostly to United States ($135B), China ($121B), France ($119B), Netherlands ($100B), and Italy ($88.7B).

In 2021, Germany was the world’s biggest exporter of Cars ($135B), Packaged Medicaments ($64.6B), Motor vehicles; parts and accessories (8701 to 8705) ($64.5B), Centrifuges ($15.4B), and Electrical Control Boards ($13.6B).

Main local online stores
Amazon.de, Otto.dem, Zalando.de

Economic freedom
‘Mostly free’ (73.7 out of 100) ranked 14th out of 44 European countries ranked 24th out of 176 countries worldwide (2023, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal)

Global Innovation Index
Ranked 5th out of 39 European countries, 8th out of 132 worldwide.

The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.

Source: OEC

Source: PostNord

Media

Media language German, English

Information channels
Germany’s competitive television market is the largest in Europe, with more than 38 million TV households. The many regional and national public broadcasters – organised in line with the federal political structure – vie for audiences with powerful commercial operators. Each of the 16 regions regulates its own private and public broadcasting. The national public broadcasters are TV networks Das Erste and ZDF and Deutschlandradio. Public TV and radio are funded by a “broadcasting contribution” paid by each household. Deutsche Welle (DW) is Germany’s international broadcaster. Germany is home to some of the world’s largest media conglomerates, including Bertelsmann and the publisher Axel Springer. The top free-to-air commercial TV networks are operated by RTL Group and ProSiebenSat1 Media. Germans are avid newspaper readers and the non-tabloid press is a trusted news source. There are several national newspapers, but the press is strongest at the regional and local level. Bild tabloid is the best-selling daily. Media freedom is enshrined in the Constitution. While the press and broadcasters are free and independent, the display of swastikas and statements endorsing Nazism are illegal.

The press

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung – prestigious daily
Sueddeutsche Zeitung – Munich-based daily
Die Welt – Berlin-based daily
Frankfurter Rundschau – Frankfurt am Main-based daily
Handelsblatt – Duesseldorf-based financial daily
Focus – weekly news magazine
Der Spiegel – news weekly, English-language site
Die Zeit – weekly
Bild – mass-circulation daily
The Local – Berlin-based, English-language

Television

ARD – organisation of regional public broadcasters; operates Das Erste, the main national public TV channel
ZDF – operates second national public TV channel
n-tv – commercial, rolling-news
Welt – commercial, rolling news
RTL – major commercial broadcaster
ProSiebenSat.1 – major commercial broadcaster
DW-TV – public, international; in German, English, Spanish, Arabic
Sky – pay-TV operator

Radio

ARD – umbrella organisation of public radio services, including those of individual regions
Deutschlandradio – operates national public stations Deutschlandfunk and Deutschlandradio Kultur, both offering current affairs and cultural programmes
Deutsche Welle – international radio, services in many languages

News agency

Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa)

Internet Data

Internet users
93.1% penetration, 77.53 million

Share of web traffic by device
46.30% mobile phones, 51.31% computers (laptops and desktops), 2.35% tablet devices, others 0.04%

Median speed of mobile Internet connection
56.18  Mbps

Median speed of fixed Internet connection
80.69 Mbps

Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 143.6%

Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 97.3%

Most popular web search engines
Google (90.43%), Bing (5.43%), Yahoo! (1.02%), Duckduckgo (0.95%), Yandex (0.81%), other (1.36%).

Most used social media
Facebook (58.82%), Instagram (18.23%), Twitter (7.7%), Pinterest (7.5%), YouTube (4.1%), LinkedIn (1.41%), Reddit (1.01%), other (1.23%).

Social statistics

Life expectancy
81 yrs (2021)

Corruption perceptions Index
Germany scored 79 out of 100, ranked 9 out of 180 countries worldwide.

Current health expenditure
12.81% of GDP

Current education expenditure
91.6% of total expenditure in public institutions

CO2 emissions
7.3 metric tons per capita

World Happiness Index
Germany ranked 14 out of 146 countries, with a score of 7.034.

Glass Ceiling Index
54.5 out 100, ranked 22nd out of 29 countries.

The glass-ceiling index measures the environment for working women combining data on higher education, labor-force participation, pay, child-care costs, maternity and paternity rights, business-school applications, and representation in senior jobs.