Germany’s top companies pledged to publish new targets for placing more women in their boardrooms but resisted fresh calls for legal quotas to rectify a wide gender gap.

The 30 corporations listed on Frankfurt’s blue-chip DAX index announced the plans for this year at a meeting with government ministers on the dramatic lack of female executives in Europe’s biggest economy.

“Women are under-represented on the staff of many companies, on executive boards, on supervisory boards as well as in top management positions,” the firms said in a joint statement.

“The companies will set their own specific and differentiated targets for increasing the number of women on their staff and in leadership positions, define their own corporation-specific timeframes and regularly report on their goals, measures taken and achieved results.”

German business is under pressure following recent calls from women’s rights groups, the country’s top-selling news magazine Der Spiegel and Labour Minister Ursula von der Leyen for legally binding quotas for women in management.

Ms Von der Leyen, who would like to see an average of 30 per cent female representation on supervisory and executive boards among listed companies by 2018, lamented a lack of progress at the meeting.