As a business and investment location, NRW is one of the leading regions in Europe – this is confirmed by the "European Cities and Regions of the Future 2024" ranking by fDi intelligence, a subsidiary of the Financial Times Group.
In the traditional location comparison study, NRW is the best-placed German region in the overall ranking of large regions, coming in third behind the metropolitan areas of Paris (Île-de-France) and London (South East England). The positive overall result is rounded off by consistently high ratings and top 3 rankings in other categories such as "Human Capital & Lifestyle" (2nd place), "Business Friendliness" (2nd place), "Connectivity" (3rd place) and "FDI Strategy" (3rd place). This was a further improvement on the previous year's strong performance.
NRW impressed in the ranking as the No. 1 investment location in Germany, with some 22,000 international companies based here, a well-known high-performance industrial landscape, as well as a dense university and research network and a large talent pool of qualified specialists.
"The excellent performance in this year's fDi location comparison underlines North Rhine-Westphalia's strong position as an investment and innovation location within Germany and in the competition between European metropolitan regions," explains Felix Neugart, CEO of NRW.Global Business. "Together with the approximately 22,000 international companies that have already settled here, we want to continue to drive forward the transformation of the economy and make NRW the first climate-neutral industrial location in Europe."
- Further information and download of the study