Person is working on an car

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This evening, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier will hold a video conference with the representatives of the working group for economic stimulus measures. The conference will focus on developing measures to help various sectors of the economy to quickly regain momentum again, especially the automotive industry, which has been particularly hard hit by the coronavirus crisis.

Federal Minister Peter Altmaier said: "The coronavirus pandemic has affected nearly all sectors of the economy, including the German automotive industry, which employs more than 800,000 people. It is our goal to safeguard jobs and to see to it that our prosperity starts to grow again. It is therefore crucial that our measures benefit everyone in Germany. I am chairing a working group that will develop a package of measures by the beginning of June which aims to boost the automotive industry and other important sectors of the economy in the most effective way possible.”

The automotive industry and the economy as a whole need a clear vision for them to be able to recover quickly and as broadly as possible. The working group is therefore tasked with developing an approach that outlines concrete steps to speed up the economy’s recovery process. It will discuss measures to stimulate the German economy and to contribute to the modernisation of the automotive industry by boosting innovative vehicle technologies. The working group will draw up a concept paper that will provide the basis for the discussions at the next Automotive Summit to be chaired by Chancellor Angela Merkel in early June.

The high-ranking working group, chaired by Federal Minister Altmaier, was set up on the back of this year’s Federal Government's Automotive Summit chaired by Chancellor Angela Merkel, which took place on 5 May 2020. Further participants of the working group include the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), IG Metall, the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, and the Federal Chancellery.

The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy is also setting up an automotive industry transformation dialogue to provide political backing and support for structural change in the automotive industry. The focus will be on topics that are important for a successful transformation of the automotive industry, especially that among small and medium-sized suppliers in the regional automotive clusters.