The Normandie Region, AD Normandie, and Business France Join Forces for Territorial Attractiveness

On Tuesday, September 12, 2023, Hervé Morin, President of the Normandie Regional Council and AD Normandie Development Agency and Laurent Saint-Martin, Chief Executive Officer of Business France, signed a partnership agreement for the period 2023-2028, formalizing their common desire to continue and strengthen their actions in support of the international attractiveness of Normandy.

“Normandy is recognized as a region that will secure future investments and a sustainable economy. Decarbonization, the green transition and the bioeconomy are the main strengths of the economic policy pursued by the Regional Council. These are strengths that have already convinced numerous American, British, Belgian, Italian and Dutch investors to set up here. To enable Normandy to strengthen its economic attractiveness, we must now continue to invest and continue our collective work with both Business France and the sectors, many of which have now reached a certain amount of maturity, enabling us to go even further. This will also involve organizing major events in the region to bring in foreign investors. This is what we’ve already experienced with CidrExpo, and it’s what we’re going to do with the 2024 Olympics and the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy.” 

Hervé Morin, President of the Normandie region

“In partnership with the Normandie Regional Council and AD Normandie, Business France is committed to promoting Normandy on the international stage, strengthening its position as a land of innovation, sustainability and opportunities. Together, we’re building Normandy’s economic future, open to the world and focused on the future.”

Laurent Saint-Martin, Chief Executive Officer at Business France

Three main areas of work in 2023-2028

This agreement sets out the areas of joint work with three main objectives:

• Better promote Normandy’s economic attractiveness and the strengths of its region.
• Search for international investments to encourage the implementation of new projects and job creation in the region.
• Support and facilitate international investment projects in the region: identify and suggest sites and buildings, make qualified and useful leads, provide information on sectors and territories, identify employment areas, find relevant funding and support the recruitment of French and international talent.

An experimental framework, unique in France, for Normandy communities

Among the next measures to be carried out as part of this collaboration are a call for applications aimed at intermunicipal areas, which will be launched at the beginning of October.

This experimental framework, which is unique in France, will aim to support territories with a deficit in economic engineering, with a view to strengthening their economic attractiveness and regional development, and giving them a chance in terms of national and international competition, by promoting their resources and mobilizing their key players.

This call for applications will be supported by AD Normandie and Business France, along with other partners such as the Caisse des Dépôts, the Banque des Territoires, the National Agency for Regional Cohesion and the Regional Prefecture.

Normandy: A very attractive region for foreign businesses

Thanks to its strategic geographical position, its spirit of innovation, its transport network, its excellence in research and industry, but also thanks to the important work carried out by AD Normandie in collaboration with Business France, Normandy has attracted many foreign investors.

Indeed, after an exceptional set of results in 2021 marked by a post-Covid crisis economic catch-up, 2022 confirmed the economic attractiveness of Normandy, with 76 new international investment projects (compared with 21 in 2016), creating or maintaining 2,316 jobs.

The year 2022 was marked by remarkable investments as part of the ecological transition of the economy. Major industrial projects in the field of plastics processing or electric mobility confirm the attractiveness of Normandy and its desire to support manufacturers with future investments and moving towards a green economy.

Normandy is particularly attractive for large industrial countries committed to the green transition. In 2022, the United States was the leading investor in the region, followed by the United Kingdom, Belgium and the Netherlands. Businesses from more than 21 different nationalities have invested in the region, thereby confirming its industrial reputation.

Among the large-scale investment projects that were completed in 2022 were those by Eastman, Ebusco, SGS and Futerro.