This summer Germany’s state-owned railway giant Deutsche Bahn started to experience what globalization is all about in the very heart of its business. The privately owned company HKX began servicing the Cologne-Hamburg railroad.
HKX, for the first time, brought competition on a long-distance connection in Germany’s still largely monopolized railroad market. HKX — the acronym means Hamburg-Köln-Express — offers travelers transport between two important metropolitan areas at a very competitive price.
Why is Peter Seidel, a political reporter for Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger in Cologne, Germany telling all this to readers of The Salt Lake City Tribune, more than 5,100 miles and eight time zones away from Germany? Well, first of all, the competitor to Deutsche Bahn is Railroad Development Corp., an American company from Pittsburgh, Pa., which owns HKX.
And while the fact that an American railroad company goes to Germany to invest in a railroad connection rather than doing that at home says a lot about the situation of railway as a means of mass transport in the U.S., it also says: Businesses go to where they find promising markets and opportunities.
Utah’s companies in that respect seem to have made ample use of their chances in Europe in the past decade. Utah’s exports have more than quadrupled from $1.3 billion in the year 2000 to more than $6 billion in 2010, making Europe — the 27 EU-member states plus Switzerland — the most important export market for Utah.
Of a total of $6.5 billion invested in Utah, $1.1 billion or 17 percent came from Europe, thus supporting 19,300 jobs in Utah in 2008. Together with West Virginia and South Carolina, Utah is one of three U.S. states that are most intensely connected with the European market.
Sadly, these figures in the single market don’t look too good right now, for the EU and for Utah. Utah’s exports to the EU have already decreased by 9 percent between 2010 and 2011. And if the euro crisis continues to put economic growth rates in Utah’s most important European partner countries under pressure, this might become worse.
The most important market for Utah’s commodities is Great Britain, where about two-thirds of Utah exports go. Switzerland, Belgium and Germany account for another 25 percent of Utah exports to Europe as a whole. Salt Lake Tribune
