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Doing Business in Berlin Foreign investors will continue to find the German market, Europe´s largest, to be extremely attractive in a variety of sectors. Successful market entrants will be those having innovative products featuring high quality and modern styling. Particularly in the consumer goods sectors, Germans appreciate innovation and high technology. Quality, and the assurance that the manufacturer is committed to providing a superior product and maintaining a reliable service are as important as price for the German consumer. A common mistake foreign businesses make is servicing their clients from a single European location or even directly from the US or UK. Germans often perceive foreign companies as being unreliable and too quick to favor domestic orders over export orders. Distance from the market is no excuse to a customer with a problem. Success in the marketplace can be achieved by countering this comparative disadvantage with high quality products and service. High marginal tax rates, inflexible labor laws and burdensome regulations are cited by foreign firms as the main obstacles to investing in Germany. While not discriminatory in the classic sense, government regulation is often complex and may offer a degree of protection to already-established local suppliers. Safety or environmental standards, not inherently discriminatory but sometimes zealously applied, can complicate access to the market for foreign products. Foreign companies interested in exporting to Germany should make sure they know precisely which standards apply to their product, and how to obtain timely testing and certification. This is doubly important because German standards may well form the basis for planned EU-wide standards.
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