* 2010 crunch increasingly likely without action - DIHK
* Remedies should be in place from 2nd quarter of 2010
* China exchange rate policy "not fair"
* Supervisory boards need to examine pay levels
By Gernot Heller and Dave Graham
BERLIN, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Germany risks a credit crunch by mid-2010 if fresh measures to improve the supply of funding to companies are not implemented soon, the country's chamber of industry and commerce (DIHK) said on Tuesday.
In an interview with Reuters, DIHK President Hans Heinrich Driftmann said German policymakers had realised "in the nick of time" that a bottleneck in credit was looming, referring to a summit held by Chancellor Angela Merkel last week.
"At the moment we don't have a broad based credit crunch," he said. "But if nothing were to be done ... a credit crunch in the middle of 2010 is becoming more and more likely."
Merkel met bankers, industry association chiefs and union leaders to discuss steps to prevent financing drying up, which included measures aimed at freeing up liquidity, aid for the securitisation market and a fund to help firms.
The summit came under fire for not leading to the adoption of concrete measures, though Driftmann said he had left it with a "positive feeling", which subsequent talks had confirmed.
Early next year, the DIHK planned to hold a meeting with top government, banking and industry officials to review the proposals with a view to implementing them, Driftmann said.
"Our proviso was firstly, the results of the review must be watertight, and must be implementable. Secondly, they must take effect from the second quarter of 2010," he added.
To resolve the impasse, Driftmann said it was vital to modify rating standards in such a way that assessments of firms' creditworthiness took the crisis into greater account.
"We don't have time to waste," he said.
TOO EXPORT FOCUSED
Driftmann reiterated that the DIHK believed the economy would grow by some two percent next year, after an expected contraction of around 4.8 percent in 2009.
Europe's largest economy exited its sharpest post-war recession in the second quarter of this year, and growth accelerated to 0.7 percent in the third.
The road to recovery would not be plain sailing, Driftmann said, and setbacks were likely to occur along the way.
Driftmann said that German firms had made mistakes in the run-up to the crisis, with some focusing "too much" on certain export markets. The capital ratio of German companies was also too low in relation to neighbouring countries, he added.
German firms also had to contend with exchange rate regimes that made business difficult -- notably with the Chinese yuan.
"We can say one thing: it's not fair. Obviously we can tell the Chinese the risk they're taking if they isolate themselves on exchange rate policy in the long term," he said, adding that there was, however, only so much firms could do about it.
When asked about steps being considered in Britain to impose a tax on bankers' bonuses, Driftmann said Germany needed to ask itself what sort of limits should be set on compensation.
"Firstly, we need to make clear in Germany what's acceptable and what isn't. Before thinking about legal steps like in Britain, I think supervisory boards have a duty here," he said.
"They are responsible...for setting pay at levels appropriate to performance and justifiable to the outside world. The state should always only act as a last resort."
(Editing by Patrick Graham)