Germany and Japan face some common challenges as they try to maintain growth amid the global financial crisis, veteran journalists from German media organizations told a recent symposium in Tokyo.
While Germany expects to be hit much harder than Japan by the turmoil, the two economies have similar underlying problems that threaten their long-term competitiveness, including demographic changes that could hurt their technological edge, the journalists said.
The five German journalists were speaking at the Oct. 10 symposium organized by Keizai Koho Center under the theme, "Challenges for corporations to achieve sustainable growth," after a weeklong visit to Japan for exchanges with business people, government officials and academics. They were joined by Hiromasa Kubo, a professor at the Graduate School of Economics at Kobe University, who served as moderator of the discussions.