lls. Obsolescence and inefficiency were made worse by the physical legacy of the GDR's economic policies: the eastern landscape abounded in toxic waste sites and in crumbling public infrastructure. The euphoria sparked by the opening of the Berlin Wall gradually gave way to a more sober realization of the full magnitude of the task of rebuilding the east from the ground up. The public and private sectors responded with a massive program of aid and investment. Transfers to the new eastern states passed the DM 1 trillion mark in the spring of 1998. Roughly half of this infusion has come directly from the federal budget, and annual governmental outlays for Aufbau Ost ("Building the East") are expected to continue at the present level - DM 140 billion in 1997 - into the next decade. The half trillion marks privately invested in the east between 1990 and early 1998 include DM 211 billion pledged in connection with purchase agreements for GDR state assets and state-subsidized ventures. Public and private investment has done much to bring the east's basic infrastructure up to par with the west. Since 1990, 7,000 miles of roads and 3,000 miles of rail lines have been rebuilt or newly constructed. Over half a million new housing units have been built and 3.5 million existing residences have been renovated. Eastern Germany's telecommunications system was completely replaced with state-of-the art technology and now ranks among the most advanced in the world. The market economy has taken firm root in the eastern states. By the expiration of its mandate in 1994, the agency responsible for selling the one-time state property of the GDR had turned approximately 14,000 enterprises - 98 percent of those entrusted to it - over into private hands. Hundreds of thousands of new businesses have opened in the east, and both western German and foreign firms, led by ...
