Ecuador at a Glance

• Population: 12.4 million


• Capital city: Quito, approx. 1.7 million inhabitants


• Language: Spanish


• Religions: approx. 85% Catholics, Protestants, Jews, natural religion


• Form of government: Presidential democracy with Unicameral-parliament

Economy

Together with Italy, Germany is Ecuador's most important trading partner in the EU. Germany ranks 11th as supplier country in Ecuadorian foreign trade statistics and 8th as importing country. Bananas, cut flowers, fish and seafood are the most important Ecuadorian export products to Germany. Ecuador imports motor vehicles and parts as well as chemical and pharmaceutical products from Germany. German businesses operating in Ecuador focus on trade. Since 1978, Quito has been home to a German-Ecuadorian Chamber of Industry and Commerce with a liaison office in Guayaquil. To promote exports to Europe, Ecuador opened a trade centre in Hamburg in 1993, which now functions as a branch office of the embassy. An investment promotion and protection agreement dates from 1965 and a double taxation agreement from 1986. For a number of years now the German School in Quito has been running a two-year course of vocational training modelled on the German system (for example for wholesale, import and export merchants, industrial clerks and office clerks) in conjunction with the German-Ecuadorian Chamber of Industry and Commerce.

Germany is one of the largest donors in bilateral development cooperation with Ecuador. German development cooperation promotes the priority areas of environmental protection/resource conservation and state modernization.

Culture and Science

The main pillars of cultural exchange between Germany and Ecuador are the Humboldt Society/Goethe Centre in Quito, the German-Ecuadorian Cultural Institute in Guayaquil and the German schools in Quito, Guayaquil and since 2002 in Cuenca. The new German cultural association Red Cultural Alemana also founded in 2002 brings together all the cultural organizations active in Ecuador and now runs a consolidated German cultural programme in the host country.

Cooperation at university level is promoted above all through short-term research scholarships as well as student scholarships from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). There are a number of twinning arrangements between universities, for example between the University of Passau and the Catholic University of Quito (PUCE), cooperation focusing on scientific and technical areas.

Links

www.botschaft-ecuador.org (Official representation of Ecuador in Germany)
www.botschaft-quito.de (German Embassy in Ecuador)
www.ahkecuador.org (German-Ecuadorian Chamber of Industry and Commerce)