GERMANY: Daimler-Benz Advances in Developing World

BONN, Dic 24 (IPS) - Germany's largest industrial group Daimler- Benz -- with an expected sales revenue of proud 103 billion marks (67 billion dollars) this year -- has set out to intensify economic relations with the developing world.

So that things move smoothly, its chief executive Edzard Reuter has been rubbing shoulders with heads of state and other government leaders in the Middle East and South Africa.

A heavyweight also on Germany's political landscape, Reuter -- the son of post-war West Berlin's first governing mayor -- leaves his job next year having opened up a new chapter in the corporation's activities particularly in the Middle East.

All the four corporate units of the Stuttgart-based Daimler- Benz group -- 'Mercedes-Benz', 'Deutsche Aerospace' (DASA), 'AEG Daimler-Benz Industrie' and 'Daimler-Benz InterServices (debis)' -- are active in the markets of the Middle East.

The group's presence in the region was increased last February with the opening of two representative offices in Cairo and Jesusalem. These offices have the task of establishing and developing political and business relationship at a local level, according the group's senior vice-president Matthias Kleinert.

But Reuter is not leaving things at that. He had a detailed meeting with the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Dec. 8 in Cairo to underline that Daimler-Benz regards "Egypt's role in the region as significant and decisive".

He intended to onpass this message to other leading companies in the other European Union (EU) countries as well -- if need be, with Chancellor Helmut Kohl's backing, Reuter assured Mubarak.

"After all we are neighbours around the Mediterranean Sea," he added.

In fact the group's leading corporate unit, Mercedes-Benz, will launch the construction of a truck factory in New Salheya in the neighbourhood of Cairo next summer. This, said Kleinert, would provide 1,000 jobs.

Another strategic area in Daimler-Benz's Middle East strategy are the Palestine autonomous territories.

The group has completed a feasibility study for their development, which was presented to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) chairman Yasser Arafat during his visit to the company's headquarters in southern Germany last May.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service