THE Federal Republic of Germany is one of the major pillars of the group of western industrialised capitalist countries, and this largely determines its rôle in international financial institutions, and its attitudes to the global economic system and market structures. The F.R.G. is second in the world, behind the United States, expressed by its share of the monetary volume of total international trade, but the proportion of exports relative to G.N.P. is much higher than in America and slightly more than in Japan.