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German industry group asks for policies to support SMEs digitalization

Xinhua, May 31, 2016 Adjust font size:

The German government should introduce policies to support digitalization in the country's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), said a leading industry group on Tuesday, warning that a lack of action would risk the country's industrial competitiveness.

"We want our SMEs to be the driver of digitalization," said Ulrich Grillo, head of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), in a statement.

However, only three out of ten SMEs in German industrial sector are currently digitized, according to a survey commissioned by the group.

"Fearing data and control loss make many SMEs shy away from network and cloud solutions," Grillo said, adding that targeted policies were needed to improve data security.

Though strong in manufacturing and engineering, Germany is backward in internet and software in its evolution towards "Industry 4.0", a smart production process based on data communication and cloud computing.

In March, the German government decided to invest 100 billion euros (about 111.5 billion U.S. dollars) by 2025 in building nationwide high speed broadband internet.

Grillo said both speed and coverage of digital network in Germany lag behind leading industrialized countries. "Germany must start to jump into the gigabit society now, otherwise its position as industrial location will be lost," he warned. Endit