Having said that, the German economy would certainly profit from strengthening competition in the domestic market as well. Take the services sector as an example. For the last  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  20 years, total factor productivity growth in services has been markedly lower than in manufacturing.
Countries are trading more goods and services, an increasing number of firms now operate across national borders, and savers and borrowers have greater access than ever before to global financial markets. Over the past decade, world trade has grown twice as fast as world output, foreign direct investment three times as fast, and both currency trading and share trading about ten times as fast.