Economy of Alsace

Economy

With nearly 3% of GDP, Alsace places itself at the third rank of the French areas with a GDP per capita of more than 20.750 of euros.

Alsace is an area whose economic activity is varied. It can be quoted:

the vine growing of Thann to Wissembourg, on a fine tape located at the limit enters the ditch of the Rhine and the hills under-Vosgean, (mainly in the center of the area, between Sélestat and Colmar, the Wine trail of Alsace; However, no vine appears with height of the collar of Saverne and Haguenau: thus, the vineyards of Wissembourg form an isolated enclave.
culture of the Hop and the mixing of beer (half of French beer is produced in Alsace especially around Strasbourg, in particular with Schiltigheim, Obernai and Hochfelden);
forestry development;
auto industry (Peugeot with Sausheim, General Motors with Strasbourg);
the industry of the life sciences, within the framework of the Technopolis trinational Biovalley occupying the European leadership of this field;
tourism;
chocolate and confectionery (Masterfood with Haguenau, Kraft Suchard in Strasbourg, Schaal Chocolate in Geispolsheim)
the industrial pork-butchery (Stoeffler, Pierre Schmidt, Iller, Temple, Maurer,…)
various industries and services…

Economic past

The Area was specialized in the textile of which today there remain traces with some companies which could resist the crisis of the textile that knew Alsace (NCS Groupe, DMC,…).

One extracted from oil in north and potash in the south. These two activities were stopped respectively in the Fifties and in 2004.

The mining of potassium chloride (sylvinite - phosphates) which during one century extracted 570 million tons (thirteen thousand paid in 1950) is from now on the object of a museum beside the rest of the Rodolphe mine to Wittelsheim.

The international one

Alsace is strongly turned towards the international one, 35% of the companies have a foreign participation there (in particular German, Suisse, states-unien, Scandinavian Japan ease and ). The Germany represented nearly 38,5% of the Alsatian imports in 2002.

Unemployment

Saved a long time by the plague of unemployment, Alsace saw this one strongly increasing (+ 20% between March 2002 and March 2003 reaching nearly 6,8% of the active population). This relatively low unemployment rate was due to industry (26% of employment) in crisis from now on. Alsace henceforth starts its conversion of industry towards the tertiary sector, in particular research and the New technologies.

This reconversion results in particular in the creation of a new pole: the pole IMAGE (iconoval). It gathers all the activities of new technologies, image and audio-visual. This pole was created following a study which showed the importance of this sector in Alsace, of the number of employment that it represents and of the assets of the Area, sits several European organizations in the audio-visual one (European Observatoire of audio-visual the, Fonds Eurimages, EPRA, ARTE, CIRCOM,…). Created in 2003, it is gradually set up to better be able to develop this sector.

The poles of competitiveness

a therapeutic pole innovation for Strasbourg and which relates to the life sciences and biotechnology. Alsace is the second area of France in the field of biotechnologies.
an automobile pole of the future for Alsace and Frank the County centered around manufacturer PSA present in Mulhouse and Montbeliard.

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