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NRW remains TOP investment location in Europe

Düsseldorf, 5 May 2017 - In 2016, international investors accounted for 413 new settlements and expansion investments in NRW, thereby creating a total of around 8,600 potential jobs in the state. This represents an increase of more than 7 percent compared to the previous year. These are the figures issued by the state-owned economic development agency NRW.INVEST.

Among the investor countries, Greater China leads in terms of investment projects ahead of the USA, the Netherlands and Turkey. "China is further expanding its position as the leading investor country in NRW," explains Petra Wassner, CEO of NRW.INVEST. 101 of the 413 investment projects came from Greater China. But Japan and Poland also invested heavily in NRW last year. With more than 2,400 potential jobs, the USA is an employment engine.

In 2016, North Rhine-Westphalia was again a highly desirable location for investments in logistics projects with high investment sums and strong labor market effects. Companies including Amazon, Decathlon, UPS and Steinhoff invested more than 125 million euros in 2016, creating around 2,200 new jobs in the region. NRW is also becoming more and more interesting for the digital economy. Since 2010, the number of investors in the software and IT sector has more than tripled. Digital companies such as Quanta Cloud Technology from Taiwan, the Finnish M-Files, the US companies Anaqua and Logility or the French start-ups AB Tasty and iAdvize are attracted above all to the Rhineland. And in 2016, investment was particularly strong in the production sector. "The production location NRW is gaining in popularity again," says Wassner. For example, 3M, Firestone, Johnson Matthey, Momentive and Ornua invested a total of around 120 million euros in the state.

Once again in 2016, the Düsseldorf region was the leading location in NRW with 41 percent of all projects, followed by the Cologne-Bonn region with 18 percent and the Ruhr Metropolis with 16 percent.

NRW is Germany's No. 1 investment location. More than 18,000 foreign companies control their German or European activities from here. In total, international companies in NRW employ more than 800,000 people.