Germany: Foreigners set up a third of all new firms

Germany: Foreigners set up a third of all new firms

Via the Local:
Foreigners are three times as likely to start a new business as Germans, according to a new study which showed that nearly a third of all new companies founded in 2009 were set up by migrants.

The study commissioned by the Economy Ministry showed around 130,000 new companies were started in 2009 in Germany by people without German citizenship – around 30 percent of all new firms set up that year.

The number of companies started by foreigners in Germany has risen by about a quarter since 2005, the report compiled by consulting group Evers & Jung concluded, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

The report said foreigners were three times as likely to start a new company as Germans.

“New firms are lifeblood for the German economy,” German Economy Minister Philipp Rösler, told the paper.

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In 2005 nearly a third of foreigners who started companies in Germany were from countries which had been targeted for guest workers in the 1960s – Turkey and Italy. In 2009 however, the share of foreign company founders from these countries had dropped to around a fifth.

(source)