Now, there are some commentators here and there who ascribe this performance to increasing globalisation. However, this argument does not hold up under closer examination. Following a period of export weakness in the early 1990s, the German economy achieved extremely good results in foreign trade between 1994 and 2001.
Given an overall moderate growth in GDP during the period mentioned of 14½%, real exports increased by 79½% and real imports by 67½%. One of the factors contributing to the positive development in exports since the mid-1990s was improved price competitiveness of the German business sector. This meant that earlier adverse developments were largely reversed.