Economy and Employment

In the mid-nineteenth century, Maastricht became the Netherlands’ first industrial city when Belgian investors paved the way for the industrial production of ceramics, glass and cement. Not long afterwards, the British inventor Robert Pope founded a light bulb factory in Venlo. Ceramics had already been produced near the town of Tegelen as far back as the Roman era, to be succeeded later by factories manufacturing vitrified clay pipes, bricks and roof tiles. In 1910, the mining industry took off in South Limburg, leading to the rapid growth of such towns as Heerlen, Kerkrade and Geleen. Until after the Second World War, Limburg was the principal supplier of coal for energy in the Netherlands.

The 1950s saw the development of Limburg’s first industrialization programmes designed to create alternative employment in rural areas. Central and South Limburg became focal areas of intensive animal husbandry (pigs, chickens and dairy cattle) and glasshouse market gardening. The surplus work force resulting from the regions’s earlier mixture of agriculture and market gardening was put to work primarily in such new industrial centres as Weert, Venray, Helden and Bergen. Limburg is currently regarded as one of Europe’s principal regions in the field of agricultural production and associated research. Various internationally-renowned institutes are located in Horst, such as a research station for mushroom cultivation, an asparagus research centre and the Meterikseveld market gardening testing fields.

The closure of the coal mines (1965-1975) meant that Limburg faced the historic challenge of compensating for the loss of same 75 thousand jobs. The special restructuring programme, for which the Dutch government earmarked more than € 5 billion for investment and support, provided the province with a new economie structure which paved the way towards a brighter future. One element was the successful use made of Limburg’s advantages within the European context.

Those years of change and renewal attracted no less than 30% of the total foreign investment in the Netherlands to the country’s southernmost province. Limburg’s main industrial sectors are chemicals, the automotive industry and office equipment. Limburg and the neighbouring part of the province of Brabant account for half of all Dutch research and development. It is hardly surprising, then, that Limburg is one of Western Europe’s care economic areas. Within a 300 kilometre radius, it has a potential market of more than 100 million consumers and 200,000 companies in no fewer than five countries. More than 70% of the Netherlands’ international freight traffic passes through Limburg. Venlo and environs are the most important logistic node, with a large concentration of businesses at the Tradeport business site. The barge terminal at the Juliana Canal at Born is also an important location for the transshipment of goods.