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Comment by MichailP | Hacker News Reader

While I think it is good for both Germany and students, it probably has a bit of geopolitics mixed in. All those young people, if they return to their home countries, will be naturally more oriented toward German products thus indirectly making German economy stronger. I saw a similar theme in Russia, where there is even a specialized university for this [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples%27_Friendship_Universi...

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Very odd statement to include economical geopolitics here. Do you really believe that German companies lobbied each of the 16 German state-governments to lure in foreign students just so they buy German stuff back at home? Wouldn't it make more sense to influence foreigners directly with this thing called "marketing"?

If you're Adidas, why the hell go through this hassle and conspire with << all the other german companies >> to use the german education system as a proxy for getting a little bit of good PR - not even for your product, just German products in general.

If there's a geopolitical factor involved at all it's inter-cultural relations, which for a country that ruined most of Europe once is a rather good thing.

Speaking of Adidas and geopolitics, they produce all their shoes for Europe in Sanino d.o.o in Derventa, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Cheap labor in war destroyed country... go figure.

Not just common consumer goods, but say, electrical engineer educated in Germany would be inclined to use Siemens software and hardware, and he/she would need to put extra effort to learn about alternatives.

I agree, we were told the same thing, when I was a full-degree foreign student in Bavaria: They do this as part of their foreign policy and they expect us to go back home to help develop our country and ideally do business with German businesses.

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