Leipzig/Halle Airport region joins forces to attract investors

Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG (MFAG), Wirtschaftsförderung Sachsen GmbH (WFS) and Investitions- und Marketinggesellschaft Sachsen-Anhalt mbH (IMG) have signed an extensive cooperation agreement in order to strengthen the position of the “Leipzig/Halle Airport Region” in the long term. The aim of the agreement is to market “airea – the Airport Region in Central Germany” as a joint economic area across different federal states and internationally and make even more effective use of its potential to attract investors and enable firms to set up their business here.

The three companies will cooperate in attracting investors and pool the ex-pertise of their firm settlement experts and skilled sector teams. Among other things, they are aiming to create a common approach to attracting and sup-porting investors, setting up and expanding a network of international coop-eration partners, marketing industrial areas in close cooperation with the regional development agencies – as well as providing concentrated services in the field of logistics concepts, support for developing the workforce and encouraging companies to come to the region. Searching for specialist work-ers, information about subsidies and funding topics as well as helping compa-nies find their way with public authorities/approval procedures as part of investment projects will be other main focal areas.

Those involved will also work closely with Germany’s national economic de-velopment agency, Germany Trade and Invest (GTAI). The three companies want to explicitly attract other network partners in future, which can then make a contribution towards marketing the airport region on an international scale.

Götz Ahmelmann, the CEO of Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG comments, “The Leipzig/Halle airport site is growing with a huge degree of dynamism, as the numerous successful efforts to attract companies have shown during the last few years. It’s crucial in terms of international competition that we cooper-ate closely in marketing operations across the different federal states. The Central German economic region is stronger if we pull together. This cooper-ation arrangement will help expand the existing value-added chains and at-tract new, innovative companies. I’m convinced that we’re doing exactly the right thing with the agreement that we’ve now signed.”

Martin Dulig, Deputy State Premier and the Economics Minister in the Free State of Saxony, emphasises, “When facing global competion with regard to business sites, cooperation beyond national boundaries is becoming more important than ever. Adopting a purely regional approach doesn’t help any-one. Particularly in Eastern Germany, we need to be able to pool our strengths to advance the region, think on a bigger scale and have an open mind. Intel’s future chip factory in Magdeburg will also strengthen the Saxon high-tech Silicon Saxony network. The jobs market far beyond Halle benefits from Porsche, BMW or Beiersdorf in Leipzig too. Bosch in Dresden or Tesla near Berlin are other large industrial projects that exert a powerful influence on the region, are reindustrialising Eastern Germany and are creating pros-perity for future generations.”

Sven Schulze, the Minister for Tourism, Agriculture and Forestry in the State of Saxony-Anhalt, says, “Leipzig/Halle Airport is a leading cargo airport in Europe and is an important regional factor for the core Central German re-gion around Leipzig and Halle. Well-known companies and international en-terprises operating in the logistics, automotive, e-commerce and electronics sectors have therefore settled near the airport. It’s therefore correct to co-operate on a wider scale in this dynamic setting in future and dovetail economic areas with each other. We’re also creating excellent conditions to attract more firms to this region in future, a region that is affected by struc-tural change.”

Thomas Horn, the Managing Director of Wirtschaftsförderung Sachsen GmbH (WFS), adds, “Global competition for decisions regarding investments and attracting international corporations makes it necessary for us to pool our expertise and make use of synergy effects to market joint regional eco-nomic areas, as we intend to do for the region in Central Germany near Leipzig/Halle Airport. We believe that this cooperation will give use greater inter-national visibility and presence in attracting companies and gaining inves-tors.”

Thomas Einsfelder, the Managing Director of Investitions- und Marketingge-sellschaft Sachsen-Anhalt mbH, Magdeburg, comments, “Corporations with international operations, innovative medium-sized enterprises and young start-ups will find perfect site conditions for investments and growth here at the heart of Europe. They include excellent infrastructure, highly qualified specialist workers, a rapid transfer of innovations between the academic and business worlds and proximity to the markets all over Europe. Joint marketing is also designed to spread this appeal to other sectors and help the Central German lignite regions, which are affected by structural change, to attract replacement investments.”

Source: PharmaTimes Online

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