11
Because the door to financing any more debts by the emission of shares in the year
2001 closed the telecom companies launched huge capital market bonds for which
they had to pay interest. Deutsche Telekom, for example, has a debt volume of about
67 bill. Euros. They also tried to sell all their activities and property assets which
were not part of their key- activities. But sometimes this escape route seemed to be
closed, because - look for example at the television-cable activities of the Deutsche
Telekom - the media-industries and companies themselves are in the midst of a crisis
(ish in NRW, Kirch Media, digital television in Britain, Vivendi in France and so
on). In the early summer of 2002 Deutsche Telekom (DTAG) again tried to launch a
jumbo bonds emission of about 8 bill Euros for which they had to pay about an eight
percent interest rate. This rate is very high, because the WorldCom crisis is also
affecting DTAG and the other companies like France Telecom, British Telecom and
Sonera who all are supposed to emit similar jumbo bonds in the year 2002.
What could be a solution to this situation?
Normally some companies have to go bankrupt. The US-company WorldCom and
maybe the German-French-Mobilcom could be the first candidates to go bankrupt.
But some of the telecom companies are still partly owned by the states (Deutsche
Telekom: 43%, France Telecom). In any case they are national champions who at
least in the past were, at the end of the day, protected and helped by the national
states. So it seems to take more time to destroy the over-accumulated capital in this
sector. That means that the real investments in this sector will continue to remain on
a very low level. The telecom companies will not pay taxes on profits for many
years. This deepens the financial crisis of the Federal State of Northrhine-Westfalia3
and the cities where some of the headquarters are located (Bonn, Düsseldorf).
Beside the investments that are necessary for establishing the minimum UMTS-
infrastructure they reduce their investments radically. So the network providers and
producers also have lower turnovers.
Summary: the crisis in the main parts of the new economy is deeper than discussed in
the public. So the investments remain low, and it is much more difficult than it
seemed to be two years ago to take this sector of the economy as the most important
one for tackling regional and local economic crisis, as was done in the Ruhr area and
especially in the city of Dortmund.
IV. First results of the dortmund project and perspectives of the economic and
financial status of the area and the city of Dortmund
1. First results of the Dortmund project (at the end of 2001, see dortmund-project
(Hg.)(2002)):
- Important steps have been taken to found the main institutional and physical
infrastructure of the Dortmund project: incubators like the e-logistic centre,
the biomed-centre, the B1st Software Factory and the Centre for
Microsystems Technologies have been started or launched.
- The main sites for the future high technology activities of firms have been
developed successfully (Stadtkrone Ost ) or are in the starting phase
3 Within two years the net debts of the state of NRW grew by 8,1 bill. Euro from 79,5 to 87,6 bill.
Euro (SZ, 14.6.02, 41).