New technology

Germany's economic saviour

German Chancellor Angela Merkel promised Saturday to boost new technologies, particularly in the auto industry, in a bid to resolve the economic crisis if she wins re-election in two weeks.

"The job for a new government is to overcome the financial and economic crisis quickly and intelligently," Merkel told the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung, stressing the need to defend jobs and ensure the recovery of the credit market.

"We will apply ourselves energetically to projects for the future as we have already done in various fields over the past four years," she added.

"I want Germany to remain an innovative country, creative and self-confident," she said, referring to her government's efforts in protecting the environment, promoting renewable energy and improving medical techniques.

Merkel's conservative Christian Union bloc is still flying high in opinion polls and she is expected to be able to form a coalition with her favoured partner, the business-friendly Free Democrats.

Much hinges on her television debate Sunday with her main rival Frank-Walter Steinmeier of the leftist Social Democrats, her current coalition partner.

In her weekly speech on the Internet, Merkel also said Germany must play a leading role in the design of the motor vehicle of the future, recalling that her government wanted to see a million electric cars on German roads within a decade.

"It's ambitious, but it's also vital because work is going on all over the world to find alternative propulsion technologies," she said.

Merkel scored a personal success on Thursday when US car giant General Motors agreed to sell a majority stake in its German subsidiary Opel to a Canadian-Russian consortium as Berlin had favoured.

AFP