Coal, Steel and the Media : Germany

Today the state’s economy has a broader foundation than ever before. Since 1960 the percentage of the work force employed in the coal and steel industry has dropped dramatically, from 12.5 percent to 4.7 percent. Only 15 coal mines are still in operation in the Ruhr. Many new jobs have been created in the media and cultural sector, which has become the sector with the highest annual increases in turnover. In 1996 the media conglomerate Time Warner opened a movie park and movie studio complex in Bottrop-Kirchhellen built at a cost of more than DM360 million - the largest investment ever made in this sector in Germany. The Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, the Institute for Media Practice and Media Transfer at the Folkwang Academy in Essen and the academy for the media in Siegen are further examples of the endeavors undertaken by the state in this area. Today about 64 percent of the work force in North Rhine-Westphalia is employed in the service sector. Here the restructuring process was always conjoined with ecological innovation as well: With 1,600 firms active in the field of environmental protection, the state has become one of Europe’s foremost centers of environmental technology.

North Rhine-Westphalia’s bustling economic life is supported by a dense network of autobahns, rail lines and waterways connecting the state’s numerous big cities such as Cologne (966,000 inhabitants), Essen (615,000), Dortmund (599,000), Dusseldorf (571,000), Duisburg (535,000), Bochum (400,000), Wuppertal (382,000), Bielefeld (324,000), Gelsen-kirchen (291,000), Monchengladbach (267,000), Munster (265,000), Krefeld (250,000) and Aachen (248,000). The Dusseldorf and Cologne/Bonn airports round out this network; Duisburg on the Rhine has the world’s largest inland port.

57 of Germany’s 160 largest firms have their headquarters in North Rhine-Westphalia. In addition to industrial giants such as Bayer Leverkusen, VEBA AG or the printing and publishing corporation Bertelsmann, about 600,000 small and medium-sized businesses are engaged in production. Dusseldorf is one of Germany’s largest banking centers. Cologne is one of the nation’s leading insurance headquarters. Dortmund has long since overtaken Munich as a “beer city”. North Rhine-Westphalia generates more than one fourth of all German exports and consumes nearly one fourth of the Federal Republic’s imports. The state does not bear the imprint of industry alone, however: Nearly 52 percent of its area is given over to farming, and nearly 25 percent is woodlands.