An official German campaign aimed at luring international investors to the country’s economically deprived eastern regions with promises of low wages and weak trade unions has been scrapped in an embarrassing setback for the Berlin government.

Wolfgang Tiefensee, minister for eastern Germany, said he was “not happy” with a global advertising campaign by “Invest in Germany”, the government’s official investment agency, that sought to persuade investors from the US, China and Japan of the benefits of “wages up to 30 per cent below western German standards and low unionisation rates”.