The euphoria over German reunification is over, now comes the time to start paying the bills: at a time when real West German interest rates have risen to an historically high 6.5%, the Deutsche Bundespost Telekom is having to borrow the equivalent of $18,000m over the next seven years to cover part of the $33,000m or so needed to provide East Germany with a functional modern telephone system – and it is not seen possible to give the East a telephone system up to the standard of that in the West before 1997 – but then 98% of West German households have a phone, just 7% have a phone in the East. As a first step, the East German post and telecommunications authority, helped by a $140m loan from Telekom, will spend $320m during the rest of the year to extend the telephone network.
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