ABSTRACT
Looking into the Future What matters today is not so much to grasp contemporary
facts as to look into the future. This means that the official supply of information does not so much consist in answers to inquiries as in an attempt to supply German business-men with facts about new tendencies and opportunities before these become universally obvious. Moreover, a synthetic method of study is being adopted which looks upon economic policy and the general events in a country as a whole. This method supplements the point by point study of a given market. I t follows that different conditions must now be fulfilled if a market is to be successfully studied. No single market is today determined by purely internal factors; it is dependent on economic and political factors operating at a world level, on the general trend of development, etc. Even the ablest representative of a private merchant concern can hardly be expected to acquire a knowledge of these factors, which are beyond his real field of interest; yet it is essential that he should somehow acquire it. A sensible division of labour between the scrutiny of market details and the study of the grand outlines of economic development follows more or less logically. Accordingly the Federal Office for Foreign Trade Information in Cologne and the publication, Information
for Foreign Trade which it brings out, are given a field of operations adapted to the conditions governing modern world trade. Its importance is all the greater since we have still to make good the losses caused by years of isolation. It goes without saying that, side by side with this basic and authoritative information, ample scope is left to the initiative of private bodies, particularly of the Press.
