David Prosser: Germans throw their gauntlets down first

Davos Outlook Eckhard Cordes, the German businessman, cut a striking figure for British delegates to Davos yesterday. Asked whether Western nations would be able to move their manufacturing industries up the value chain, as Asian competitors undercut them at the mass end of the market, Mr Cordes looked rather nonplussed. The question simply did not arise, he insisted – the West had no choice but to do so.

It's all very well for Mr Cordes to take this position. Now in charge at Metro, the world's third-largest retailer, he spent 30 years in the automotive business, in senior roles at Daimler and Mercedes. It's fair to say he knows a bit about operating at the top end of the value chain, as do so many other leading German industrialists. That's why their exports are soaring once more.

What about the rest of us though? In the context of this week's warning from Richard Lambert, the outgoing head of the CBI, that Britain has been far busier making austerity cuts than coming up with a strategy for growth, it is difficult to be confident we will be snapping at the heels of Germany in the near future.

Does Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, get it? His boss, Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister told the WEF yesterday that there is a UK plan for growth. It would be good to hear it soon.