By Randy Tucker
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Opportunities for bilateral trade and investment between the United States and Germany have never been better, Wolfgang Ischinger, the German ambassador to the United States, told a group of business and political leaders gathered Thursday at the Hilton Netherland Plaza hotel.

Great progress has been made in raising the standard of living in the reunified Germany, introducing a market economy and improving the infrastructure there, which should spur the two-way trade in goods and services between the two countries, Ischinger said.

But the world's third-largest economy and the largest in Europe faces issues of high unemployment and stifling labor laws that have kept growth rates down since the reunification of Germany in 1991.

"We have an over-regulated economy and labor market regulations that keep businesses from hiring people,'' Ischinger told the crowd.

Ischinger said he was "cautiously optimistic'' that the German parliament would approve reforms that would be "a driving force and not an impediment to growth.''

Regardless, the United States is still Germany's second-largest trading partner, and U.S.-German trade has continued to grow strongly.

In 2000, trade between the two nations totaled $88 billion, with U.S. exports to Germany equaling $29.2 billion while U.S. imports from Germany were twice as high at $58.7 billion.

E-mail rtucker@enquirer.com