Northern Netherlands
The Northern Netherlands consists of the three provinces - Groningen, Drenthe and Friesland. Besides an abundance of splendid locations, varied nature landscapes and clean air, the area also offers large plots of land for companies' initial establishment and future expansion. Several advantages, such as availability of qualified staff, broad knowledge base, dedicated life sciences supporting facilities and supportive local government have resulted in some major industries' concentration in the Northern Netherlands. A list of these industry clusters:
Life Sciences
The Biomedical and Pharmaceutical industry has combined innovative companies and suppliers, significant knowledge centers and the availability of business locations around the knowledge centers.
Chemical industry
A strong cluster of chemical companies, including rubber and plastics industries, has been developed o wing to the enormous reserves of rock salt and natural gas. In addition, the Northern Netherlands have, at an exploitable depth, magnesium salts in the order of 1.5 trillion tons and of a pure quality.
Services
A well-developed and gro wing knowledge services sector covers a whole range of areas: the banking and insurance sector, R&D activities, ICT companies, and other business service providers, such as legal and financial services, technical design bureaus, employment agencies and advertising agencies.
Information & communication technology
Major activities can be subdivided into ICT services, hardware production and software development. Almost half of the companies generate 50% or more of their turnover from ICT services. Software manufacturers are mainly focused on specialist products such as tailor-made and trade-specific software. 44% of the production at hardware manufacturers consists of computer hardware and telecommunication equipment.
Metal industry
Factors which make the Northern Netherlands an attractive location for the metal industry include a well-developed supply structure, favorable settlement conditions, the possibility of expansion, the excellent (knowledge) infrastructure. Specific developments include: Machine and equipment building for the processing industry, rise of production of fine mechanics/megatronics for lab equipment, technological upgrading (more robots, more automation).
Logistics
The Netherlands is often referred to as the Gateway to Europe and an advantageous infrastructure can also be found in the Northern Netherlands. There are excellent road and railway connections and almost all major industrial centers are multilaterally accessible. The Logistics sector is extremely diverse and includes, among others, companies that concentrate purely on the transportation of goods. On the other hand, European Distribution Centers and companies are shifting their activities more and more towards storage and transshipment, warehousing, order-picking, labeling, etc.
Food industry
The Food Industry and the Northern Netherlands form a logical combination. The piebald cattle in the green Province of Friesland and the vast potato and sugar beet fields of Groningen provide since way back the base materials for a flourishing dairy, meat, sugar and starch industry. Branches of industry with their own end products, but also with unprecedented possibilities for supplying to new industries. Moreover, there is a variety of specialized suppliers and service providers.
Call centers and e-Service centers
The Northern Netherlands has a varied and rapidly gro wing call center sector due to the favorable labor market, relatively low cost of housing and an exceedingly involved government. e-Service centers offer businesses an innovative solution for almost all traditional front-office and back-office processes. Although many similarities can be seen in the market approach of the businesses in this industry, there are also major differences between them in processes, the services they offer and the establishment demands.
The N.V. NOM, is the regional development agency for the Northern Netherlands, which aims to contribute to the improvement of the economic structure and employment and assists northern companies in investment matters and companies considering relocating to the Northern Netherlands.
More information can be found on the NOM's website at: www.nom.nl.
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