BERLIN Reuters) - Facing tough competition from China, the United States and even tiny Luxembourg, Germany is racing to draft new laws and attract private investment to secure a slice of an emerging space market that could be worth US$1 trillion a year by the 2040s.
"We are sounding the alarm that Germany and Europe are falling behind in space vis-a-vis China and the United States," Dirk Hoke, defence and space chief at Franco-German-led aerospace group Airbus, told Reuters."We're at a critical juncture to ensure we stay in the top league."Germany is Europe's economic powerhouse and the world's fourth-largest economy. However it had just the world's seventh-largest national space budget in 2018, an estimated US$1.
Even before then, Germany is facing a brain-drain as companies worldwide ponder how to extract minerals from asteroids and water from the moon within a decade. Two other heads of small German space companies told Reuters they were considering leaving the country.Space commissioner Jarzombek is working with trade groups, companies and other experts to draft the space laws, and plans to submit it them parliament sometime after September.
Jarzombek helped secure a 269-million-euro increase in planned funding for the European Space Agency in 2020-2023. But Germany's total space funding, which includes ESA and national programmes, is not expected to rise in that period. It edged slightly lower to 1.57 billion euros in 2019.
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