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Extracting and providing more natural resources at short notice

In an interview with RAG Magazine BDI President JÜRGEN R. THUMANN calls on Government, industry and society at large to develop a new awareness of natural resources.

BDI-President JÜRGEN R. THUMANN

RAG-MAGAZINE:  Mr Thumann, you have just been in your new post as President of the Association of German Industry for a few months and are now organising a BDI natural-resources conference as the first major event of your period in office. Why have you put the subject of natural-resources dependence on the agenda of German economic policy?

JÜRGEN R. THUMANN: 

I prefer to speak of “resources security”, so as not to reduce the debate to the aspect of dependence. This issue has long been neglected by the Government because the reliable provision of raw materials to industry never seemed to be a problem. Developments of recent years, with price rises and shortages, have shown however that we need to think a lot more about natural resources. This does not just apply to business undertakings but to Government and ultimately the general public too. In recent years the debate on raw materials has been too much concerned with environmental aspects …... read more here (German version):

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