The information regarding the 1,402 jobs, of which 435 are direct R&D positions, and € 217 million investment comes from the companies themselves. It is a prognosis of their activities for the coming three years. Half of the investment is in R&D, mainly in the areas of AgroFood, Life Sciences and High Tech. These are, not coincidentally, the primary sectors that East Netherlands represents.
New Business
The increase in performance results in comparing 2011 to 2010 are reflected in the annual reporting of Investment Promotion, a business unit of the Development Agency East Netherlands (Oost NV). The professionals who make up Investment Promotion have worked hard to attract new, high-value businesses to the region, as well as helping business owners with their expansion plans, and have helped companies come in contact with each other and create even more new business. Oost NV’s business development mission is at the behest of the provinces of Gelderland and Overijssel, and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation. Counting the provinces of Gelderland and Overijssel together, in 2011 Oost NV has played an instrumental role in creating 18 new company locations, 9 company expansions, 26 cooperative ventures and 2 business retention projects.
Growth accelerators
This new economic activity isn’t only from domestic sources. In fact, far from it. Foreign investment played a large role in the economic activity in East Netherlands in 2011. Companies from Malaysia, China, the UK, the US, Japan, Singapore, France and South Korea were some of the more prominent countries represented. They are counted among the “growth accelerators” of the Dutch economy. Even though companies from these countries only represent 1% of all companies in the Netherlands, they represent 30% of the total sales volume. A research publication from such prominent international institutes as the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Economic Form have stated that companies from these countries “deliver 16% of the private employment and 30% of the total R&D investment.” They call these some 8,000 foreign country-based companies “growth accelerators” for the higher rate of knowledge they deliver and relative higher income per workplace than Dutch companies.
East Netherlands 2007 – 2011
Oost NV has contributed to the creation of 6,800 workplaces and a total investment of € 756 million over the past 5 years in Gelderland and Overijssel. This has far surpassed the target of €400 million over 5 years that the shareholders of Oost NV had required in its forecasts. Expectations for the future The Investment Promotion business unit of Oost NV currently has 250 companies in its portfolio. While on the one hand, this bodes well for results for 2012; on the other one must take into consideration the effects of the worldwide financial economic recession that continue to linger.