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- <text id=90TT0733>
- <link 93TG0101>
- <link 93TG0099>
- <title>
- Mar. 26, 1990: Putting On Weight
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Mar. 26, 1990 The Germans
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 36
- Putting On Weight
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> The Federal Republic is already Western Europe's leading
- economic power. It should soon be even stronger: unification
- with East Germany will increase its population 27% and its
- gross domestic product 24%. In the near term, however, union
- will entail heavy expenditures for the Bonn government.
- Chancellor Helmut Kohl announced last week that East German
- marks held in private savings accounts, officially valued at
- about $100 billion, would be exchanged for deutsche marks on a
- 1-for-1 basis. Bringing the East German social and economic
- infrastructure up to Western standards over the next several
- years will require the investment of hundreds of billions of
- dollars. At the same time, the combined state should be able
- to find considerable savings by reducing the size of the armed
- forces, a step Bonn has already said it plans to take.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-