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Published in the end of September, the annual EuroCham Business Confidence Survey – compiled from the responses of 115 member companies of the European Chamber of Commerce – found that while Cambodia remains an attractive destination for investment due its cheap labor, businesses were increasingly pessimistic in their outlook. Last week, EuroCham also published its updated White Book, an accumulation of 76 trade and investment policy recommendations, which could facilitate doing business in Cambodia.

In the Global Competitiveness Report 2017-2018, Germany ranks fifth among 137 states worldwide, the Swiss-based World Economic Forum announced on September 27th. Annually published since 2004, the report integrates the macroeconomic and the micro/business aspects of competitiveness into a single index.

In its annual study “Education at a Glance”, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) points out the strength of Germany’s vocational education and training system. With upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary vocational qualification, employment rates of individuals aged 25 to 34 are as high as for individuals with a tertiary one (86% and 87% respectively).

The next industrial revolution will introduce “smart factories” in which computers and robotics communicating wirelessly will handle physical processes with very little input from human operators, leaving few job opportunities for unskilled workers, executives of German industrial giants said during a briefing in Phnom Penh on August 25th organized by the German Business Group Cambodia (ADW). The event, titled “Industry 4.0, the Next Level of Manufacturing”, focused on the future of the internet and advanced technologies in the manufacturing sector, including its impact on human labour.

The German Business Group in Cambodia (ADW) invites all early birds to the Hotel Sofitel Phokeethra in Phnom Penh to discuss the next level of industrialization. Generally known as “Industry 4.0”, it mainly consists of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies. Moreover, it comprises cyber-physical systems, the internet of things, cloud computing and cognitive computing. It is a concept that is already widely applied in the global operations of many German industrial groups, and likely to impact the future of manufacturing in Cambodia.

The German engineering company gbc engineers became the youngest member of the German Business Group Cambodia in June 2017. Managed by its owners Daniel Bacon (left) and Adrian Grabara (right), the company provides independent expertise in several engineering processes. According to General Manager Rico Ehrlich, the firm is “a dynamic, internationally active engineering company with a focus on structural design and construction planning in Germany and Southeast Asia. Since 2015, we have been offering high-quality planning and consulting services in structural engineering to our customers.” With additional offices in Berlin and Ho Chi Minh City, gbc engineers includes a broad network of specialists who are ready to realize even complex projects in Cambodia.

On July 1^st, the annual Summer Junior Fellowship Program commenced at the Center for Khmer Studies, the American Research Center in Cambodia. During the next six weeks, Cambodian undergraduates along with international students study contemporary Cambodia, especially the political system, the Kingdom’s foreign relations as well as the dynamics in economics, society, and culture. The program is mainly implemented by Dr. Markus Karbaum, one of Germany’s leading political scientists regarding coeval Cambodia and a specialist in personnel development.

In the early 1970s, first the Club of Rome raised the awareness that natural resources are finite. This insight led quickly to the necessity to handle resources sustainable. It has not only influenced customers’ behavior, but moreover legislation that forced business companies to reduce emissions in manufacturing and to stimulate recycling processes in particular. Decades later, based on these beginnings a new branch of industry has arisen that has been able to proof that sustainability and environmental protection are not an obstruction for the private sector, but a possibility to make money. Today, Germany is one of world’s leading states of the so-called “green economy” that comprises various technical methods to ensure ecologic sustainability. Heinrich Böll Stiftung (HBS), a German foundation named after the writer and Nobel laureate Heinrich Böll, has been promoting ecology and sustainable development in Germany and numerous other countries since July 1^st, 1997. Based on this profound expertise, HBS’ experts perceive extensive opportunities for Cambodia.

Due to years of national disorder caused by several armed conflicts and the high demand for unique sculptures of the Angkorian era, Cambodia has become one of the main origins for looted arts since the 1970s. Although the government has significantly increased control capacities over Cambodia’s cultural heritage during the last two decades, it cannot prevent the international black marketing with the country’s cultural assets. As this business is widely known to be extreme profitable, more and more counterfeited artifacts are parts of private and public collections. Two weeks ago, the Rautenstrauch Joest Museum (RJM) in Cologne, Germany, opened a special exhibition in which visitors are called for attention that not every ancient looking sculpture originates from the Khmer Empire.

When people from all over the world try to explain Germany’s economic success, a majority of them likely point to high quality standards of most products or to efficiency, thoroughness, and detail-orientation of its engineers. Rather unknown abroad, the structural organization of the German economy plays an important part in the country's social and economic success story. The concept of the “Social Market Economy” can be defined as a third way alongside capitalism and socialism. Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), a political foundation named after Germany’s first chancellor after World War II, has been promoting this approach for several decades in numerous countries worldwide.