10,000 EXTRA JOBS
[BIZ/GOV: Maastricht, June 17] The current crisis means a difficult time for Limburg, but it wants to transform its economy into an innovative and sustainable knowledge economy, and by doing this within ten years Limburg and the western conurbation of the Randstad will become the second engine of growth with the border regions of Belgium and Germany. An important condition for this is that the state will take over the investment agenda. The proposed reduction in provincial funding by EUR 300m is an obstacle to the development of the investment agenda because scrapping projects already proposed will lead to stagnation in the knowledge economy. Accordingly, Limburg hopes that the cabinet and the second chamber will embrace the investment program. Limburg has four campuses in view: one is Greenport in Venlo, Chemelot in Sittard-Geleen, Life Sciences in Maastricht, and the Open Campus at Avantis in Heerlen. And a great deal of work is being done on their development. There is also an interest in bringing sport to the province by developing a sports zone in the Sittard-Geleen region. This must be the epicenter for top sport and sport that is widely practiced in the province. As far as sustainable energy is concerned, Limburg wants to invest in the construction of an underground pump accumulation center, OPAC, in South Limburg. The improvement of the A2 highway through Maastricht is one of the more important projects on the agenda. Currently the plan is for a double-decker, dual-carriageway highway tunnel. And finally, in the coming years EUR 10bn will have to be invested in the redevelopment of a lot of housing areas. Limburg is faced with a fall in population which will leads to empty housing and a loss of value, and a certain amount of social deterioration. In the south and center of the province a number of housing areas will have to be demolished to improve the general climate.
Limburg has set up an investment program to make its economy more viable. Twenty-two projects have been included which should provide Limburg with an extra 10,000 jobs. These projects will receive an investment of some EUR 20bn over the next ten years. The investment will have to be produced by the national, provincial and municipal levels of government and the business community. This emerged from the investment agenda for 2009–2017 presented in The Hague by the Governor of Limburg Leon Frissen and Mayor Gerd Leers of Maastricht.
http://www.limburg.nl/