FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Manufactured goods are still powering Germany's thriving exports, and there is little sign of the country's services sector catching up, according to a survey published Monday by a leading research organization.
Germany remains the world's No. 1 exporter on the strength of demand abroad for everything from automobiles and washing machines to industrial equipment. The Ifo institute found that Germany is moving toward a service-oriented economy more slowly than other nations.
''The shift from a manufacturing-based economy to a service society is not reflected in the structure of German exports,'' Ifo said in its report. ''Also, in comparison with countries that traditionally have a more financial market and service orientation, such as the U.S. and the U.K., the service share of German exports is comparatively low.''
From 1991 to 2007, just 13 percent of German exports were from the services sector, while in the U.S. and Britain, it was more than 30 percent, the report said.
The integration of emerging economies and eastern European countries into the international market has led to a rise in exports of German goods and services, but service exports are expanding more slowly than goods exports, Ifo said.
''If the export pattern remains like this, the export share of services in all exports will even decline in future,'' Ifo researcher Monika Ruschinski said in a statement. The strong dependency of exports on the producing sector would therefore increase, she added.
German exports will be ''strongly influenced by the manufacturing business cycle of its foreign trading partners,'' Ifo's report said.
