The State Development Corporation of Thuringia (LEG) has enjoyed healthy business this calendar year. It managed 35 expansion and relocation projects, involving around 2,000 new jobs and approx. 460 million euros in investment commitments. “We have attractive sites with fully developed free plots and excellent traffic links and can support investors with one-stop service, from establishing their first site in Thuringia to expanding their current operations,” said Andreas Krey, Managing Director of LEG. One of the most recent projects officially kicked off in mid-November in Weimar, where Antennentechnik Bad Blankenburg, a member of the Desay SV corporate group in China, will be operating a development center for the car of the future. Also under construction is the new Daimler Truckstore facility in the Erfurter Kreuz industrial area, while Papacks Sales GmbH, a packaging specialist, is building a gigafactory in Arnstadt/Ichtershausen. Other expansion projects are continuing full steam, such as the one from CATL, a Chinese battery manufacturer, and Marquardt, an auto parts supplier from the southeast German state of Baden-Württemberg.
This summer also saw the launch of the Battery Innovation and Technology Center (BITC) project – a center of innovation and excellence that is directly related to the CATL investment and that will invest even more energy into the vibrant exchange of ideas between industry players and researchers in Thuringia. All companies in Thuringia, including the newcomers, will benefit from additional digital services which have been developed by LEG. These include the digital company database “Local Sourcing”, which enables companies to quickly find new suppliers, business partners or customers in the face of interrupted value chains. (hw)
