Last week, McKonly & Asbury hosted an educational breakfast session on the subject of doing business in Europe with a special emphasis on Germany. One of my partners, Autumn Wolfe, who is a Board Member of the World Trade Center of Central Pennsylvania helped organized this session which featured Uli Britting and Thorsten Holst, partners with GHP Revision, a Frankfurt, Germany based accounting firm. McKonly & Asbury and GHP Revision are affiliates in IGAF Worldwide, an international association of Accounting and Consulting firms.
Mr. Britting and Mr. Holst spoke about German and European Union Taxation and Accounting Regulations and answered questions from the attendees. They provided an overview of the taxation and accounting environment in Europe, a brief history of the European Union and its future, an overview of the political landscape, and a general understanding of doing business in Germany/Europe. One of the more interesting topics to the attendees was how Germany and the European Union are dealing with the economic crisis and the effect on the business operations and plans for various companies of those in attendance.
It became clear throughout their presentation and discussion that we are not alone in the economic crisis we are currently experiencing in the United States. The EU and other nations of the world are facing similar challenges. Germany, for instance, is dealing with a number of the same problems that the U.S. is in relation to the auto industry. In the same spirit of our “cash for clunkers” legislation, Germany has included provisions in their stimulus packages related to restructuring the motor-vehicle-tax on new cars and has created an “environmental bonus” for purchase of new cars. Companies in Europe have experienced liquidity and access to credit difficulties, as well as struggles in the real estate market.
Germany is the third largest economy in the world and the largest economy in Europe. The forecast for recovery in Europe, and specifically Germany, is similar to the United States. Germany is expecting negative growth in its GDP and a rise of unemployment in 2009, along with increased order inflows (primarily from Asia and the Americas) in the 3rd and 4th quarter of 2009. This, coupled with Germany’s strong infrastructure, high-technology focus, renewable energy efforts, and motivated and highly qualified/trained workforce, points towards economic recovery sometime during 2010.
Contact me if you have any further questions regarding this presentation or would like to discuss doing business in Europe (or any part of the world!) with GHP Revision or any of our talented IGAF partners worldwide.
it's a later post i think The Economic Crisis spread all over the world, no countries and area survive. nice post, Thanks for your sharing.
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