Country Info: North Rhine-Westphalia
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Thanks to its unique advantages, NRW is also Germany's most important economic region and has been one of the most popular investment locations for foreign companies in Europe for years.
NRW is located in the very heart of Europe.
Over 160 million people with a purchasing power of 3,587,277 million euros live within a radius of 500 kilometers (310 miles) from the state capital Düsseldorf.
No other European metropolitan region can offer such purchasing power.
No other region in Europe is as well connected as NRW. This is ensured.
Major international airports:
Düsseldorf
Germany's third largest passenger airport with connections to more than 200 destinations worldwide
Cologne
With an air freight volume of 860,000 tons of Germany's air freight center number three, through which every UPS package that leaves or reaches Europe runs.
- NRW has four other airports with European connections with a total of almost 450 international direct flights to the world's major cities.
- Rail networks
NRW has the densest rail network in Germany. It connects NRW directly with Europe's largest port in Rotterdam and via the freight train connection "Yuxinou" with the Chinese Chongqing. The Yuxinou train runs the approximately 10,300 km route from China through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus via Poland to Germany four times a week. - Roads
More than 2,200 kilometers of motorways and 17,600 kilometers of federal and rural roads ensure that the locations in the country are optimally connected to the European trunk road network. - Rivers and canals
The country has 720 kilometers of waterways with 120 ports, including the world’s largest inland port in Duisburg with almost 128 million tons of goods handled annually.
Conclusion: In no other region in Europe can companies find better conditions for transport and logistics.
Every fifth German startup now comes from NRW.
Incubators such as “Startplatz” in Düsseldorf and Cologne or “Co: Forward” in Aachen promote startups. In 2016, the state government established six regional “digital hubs” in Aachen, Bonn, Düsseldorf / Rhineland, Cologne, in the Münsterland and in the Ruhr area in order to connect startups with medium-sized companies and large industrial companies. More and more NRW groups are developing their own accelerator concepts to invest in innovative technologies and business models. Haniel operates its corporate accelerator Schacht One at the Zeche Zollverein in Essen.
The energy companies E.ON and the RWE subsidiary Innogy also rely on such models with the E.ON Agile Accelerator in Düsseldorf and the Essen Innogy Innovation Hub. In the economically largest federal state, global players from trade and industry as well as medium-sized businesses work together. This offers many opportunities to around 90,500 students in the fields of electrical engineering / information technology and computer science to realize their ideas.
Although North Rhine-Westphalia is the heart of Germany's industry, twelve nature parks with a total area of 13,000 square kilometers cover 40 percent of the state’s surface area.
Keep fit on 14,000 kilometers of cycle paths and over 50,000 kilometers of hiking trails, refresh yourself at one of over 100 lakes or ski in the largest winter sport resort north of the Alps in the Sauerland. NRW offers plenty of space for variety and is one of the most popular travel destinations in Germany. Here you can enjoy countless shopping opportunities, or take advantage of the cultural offerings in over 900 museums and on 130 stages - more than in Paris or London. The country is home to five UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the world-famous Cologne Cathedral.
