Cologne - Generali Deutschland is willing to play its part in the right environment to support investments in the German infrastructure. Last Saturday, the Federal Minister of Economics, Sigmar Gabriel, expressed his intention to persuade insurers to spend more investments in road construction and to create incentives for this. In this context, Gabriel mentioned life companies, in particular, that are looking for alternative investments due to the low level of interest rates. Dr. Torsten Utecht, Chief Financial Officer of Generali Deutschland, explains: "We are open for dialogue with policy makers to create appropriate framework conditions to finance major infrastructure projects. We understand that policy makers have an interest in preventing the public debt from further increasing. In order to make financing we therefore need concepts including an effective distribution of opportunities and risks of such investments."

Use-oriented financing models such as toll roads, tunnels or bridges, as it is partly the case in other European countries, are hard to imagine in Germany at the moment or pose a legal problem. According to Gabriel, the common public-private collaborations, the so-called public-private partnerships, are not sufficient to solve the problems and to prevent growing investment gaps. Dr. Torsten Utecht says: "New government agencies are able to close the gap and pave the way for new models of cooperation. The goal is sustaining and expanding the transport infrastructure in order that Germany's economic success is not at risk. We are available for a dialogue with policy makers in order to solve the tasks." The Federal Minister of Economics and Generali Deutschland see a modern infrastructure as a key for Germany's competitive position.

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