Even the shopping day "Singles' Day" can not hide the economic slump in China. The world's busiest shopping day set new records, but apart from trade and services, the economic slowdown is already clearly felt - and is also beating on German companies.
"The expectations of German companies are as low as they have been in years," said the German Chamber of Commerce (AHK) in Beijing, for the publication of its annual member survey on the business climate. Only a quarter (27 percent) of German companies are therefore still expecting to achieve their business goals in the People's Republic this year.
The reason for this decline is the slowdown in Chinese economic growth. In the third quarter of 2019, the growth rate of six percent was the lowest in nearly three decades. Experts called the causes of the US trade war with China, the uncertainty of investors and the Chinese efforts to tackle the growing debt as causes. Most recently, Beijing and Washington had signaled that they wanted to conclude an agreement to ease the conflict.
German car and mechanical engineers particularly affected
Especially in the automotive and mechanical engineering sectors, predictions declined significantly among German companies in view of this mixed situation. The mood was suffering from China's slowing economy coupled with the effects of the trade conflict, the chamber said. Thus, 83 percent of German companies feel directly or indirectly affected by the trade war between China and the USA.
For the coming year, too, only tentative signs of a recovery can be identified. Jens Hildebrandt, AHK's executive board member in Beijing, said, "2020 is likely to be shaped by the uncertainties surrounding the trade dispute and the slowdown in global and Chinese economic growth."
Olli Geibel / dpa
Minister of Economic Affairs Peter Altmaier in spring at a "silk road" summit in Beijing
China is still an important market providing valuable business opportunities for the companies surveyed. However, the growth potential of German companies in China remains limited due to market access restrictions and complex regulatory conditions. According to the Chamber, indirect restrictions such as the granting of licenses, disproportionate tendering procedures, a lack of participation in the development of industry standards and insufficient lead times in the implementation of new regulations represent the biggest hurdles for German companies.
For about one in two respondents, legal uncertainty and the diffuse legal framework as well as technology transfer were the most significant challenges in the China business. The Chamber appealed for the conclusion of a comprehensive investment agreement between the EU and China. Hildebrand said that an agreement that includes fair market access would give new impetus.
How does the Civey method work?
The opinion research institute Civey works with a multi-level fully automated procedure. All representative real-time surveys are played in a Germany-wide network of more than 20,000 websites ("Riversampling"), so it is not only users of SPIEGEL ONLINE interviewed. Anyone can participate in the surveys online and will be included in the representative result with their answers if they have registered. From these users, Civey draws a quoted sample that ensures that it matches the population, for example, in terms of age, gender and population density. Finally, in a third step, the results are weighted by other attendees' socio-demographic factors and attitudes to correct distortions and prevent manipulation. More information can be found in the Civey FAQ.
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The registration helps to weigh the answers, thus allowing a result for the surveys, which is representative of the voting population in Germany. Each participant is asked for their gender, year of birth and place of residence. After that everyone can give their opinion in further surveys on different topics.
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The answer of each participant is weighted so that the result of a survey is representative of the population. For the Sunday question and the government monitor, this population comprises the population entitled to vote in Germany. The weighting is done fully automatically on the basis of the personal details at the registration as well as the history of earlier answers of a user. More methodological details can be found in the Civey whitepaper.
Will you reach enough participants online?
Opinion polls are usually conducted by phone or online. The significance of the results depends on how many people can be reached and how many actually participate in a survey when they are approached. Internet connections and landline connections are currently about equally widespread in Germany - with about 90 percent of households, mobile phones even 95 percent. The willingness to participate in all methods in the single-digit percentage range, especially experts estimate it for telephone surveys.
Thus, in both methods there is a group of people that can not be reached because they either have no connection to the respective network or do not want to participate in the survey. Therefore, a significant number of people must always be approached for a meaningful result. Civey surveys are currently in addition to SPIEGEL ONLINE in more than 20,000 other websites involved, including various media. This ensures that as many populations as possible can be reached.
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Until the result of a survey becomes representative, enough different people have to participate. Whether this is already successful, makes Civey transparent, in that for each survey result a statistical error probability is specified. The number of participants and the interview time are also published for each survey.
What does it mean when the colored areas in the graphics overlap?
In our graphs, the statistical error is shown as a colored interval. This interval shows the uncertainty associated with a poll score. For example, on the Sunday question, one can not say exactly how many percent a party would get in a poll, but specify an interval where the outcome is likely to be. If the intervals of two survey values overlap, then strictly speaking no statements about the difference can be made. For the Sunday question this means: If the poll numbers of two parties are so close together that overlap their error intervals, it can not be derived from which would currently perform better in the election.
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The personal data of the users are stored encrypted on German servers and remain secret. Civey employees use only user IDs for reporting and can not associate users with their votes. The main purpose of the users' personal information is to weigh the answers and to ensure that the surveys are not manipulated. To prevent this, Civey uses both statistical and technical methods. In addition, Civey works with external partners who create audiences. Only when users have accepted the privacy policy of both Civey and an external partner, may your responses be used by the Partner to model those audiences. However, a partner does not receive information about your political and religious attitudes as well as those with which you can be identified. Civey users are also not ads based on their answers. You may object to the distribution to partners at any time here as a logged in user. More information about privacy at Civey can be found here.
Who is behind Civey surveys?
At this point, readers in the app and on the mobile / stationary website have the opportunity to participate in a representative Civey survey. Civey is an online opinion research institute based in Berlin. To compile its representative surveys, the software of the company, founded in 2015, merges websites into a nationwide survey network. In addition to SPIEGEL ONLINE include, among other things, the "Tagesspiegel", "World", "Wirtschaftswoche" and "Rheinische Post". Civey was funded by the ProFit funding program of Investitionsbank Berlin and the European Regional Development Fund.