In her address, the Chancellor underlined the importance of innovation for competitiveness as well as the significance of German-Polish business relations.

Poland – this year’s partner country

Today, the Chancellor will pay her traditional opening visit to the trade fair, along with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Poland is this year’s official partner country of CeBIT. One of Germany’s most important trading partners, and a rapidly growing, innovative industrial nation, Poland is an attractive and emerging market for high-tech businesses. It offers the highly trained specialists needed in the digital economy.

CeBIT is the world’s largest trade fair showcasing information and communications technologies (ICT). It will run from 5 to 9 March 2013 in Hannover. The ‘shareconomy’ is a keynote theme of CeBIT 2013, i.e. the sharing and joint utilisation of knowledge, resources and experience. CeBIT was originally the German acronym for the Centrum der Büro- und Informationstechnik (literally, the Centre for Office and Information Technology). In this guise CeBIT became part of the annual Hannover-Messe trade fair in 1970. By 1986 it had expanded to such an extent that it was made a separate event.