How do you comment on this? Zhou: There is a time lag between the supply of money and the changes in economic activities. The higher-than-desired level of money supply in 2003 had its special background. The new leadership of the central government was formed in March 2003, followed by the outbreak of the war on Iraq and the SARS epidemic.
In other areas, too, Germany is not stacking up well against the rest of the world. The bureaucratic hurdles to starting a business are relatively high. According to the World Bank’s current Doing Business Report, in this category Germany comes in at 114th place – behind Mali, the Bahamas and Nepal. Starting a business in this country requires nine separate procedural steps.