CeBIT: German Chancellor pledges support for IT

German Chancelor, Gerhard Schroeder, visited CeBIT on Sunday, and pledged his govenment's support for new technology. He promised to give his support to all Internet related areas. Following the EU-summit in Berlin, Schroder announced that he wished to get companies together in order to discuss an intiative to create an offensive to help boost new technology in schools, administration and Business.

Schroeder, accompanied by his wife Doris Schroeder-Koepf, strolled around the show for two and a half hours, making up a little for the fact that no Minister from the federal govenment was present at the opening of the show. The Chancelor, accompanied by CeBIT organisers, visited a dozen or so exhibitors.

The federal government should "provide guidelines that would make things easier for those working in the computer industry", said Schroeder, addressing the lack of qualified manpower available to the Information and Communications sector. "There is relatively little help that politics can provide in this area except to point out that for those qualified people, unemployement is a rare term." Schroeder's comments follow closely the UK government's pledge to the "information economy" in the recent budget, and provide further evidence that EU government's are starting to "get it" where IT is concerned.

Thanks to ZDNet Germany for this report. Translated by Sophie Handrick

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