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The German state of North Rhine Westphalia, the country’s most populous, is opening an office in Georgia to assist its companies expanding into the U.S. and to attract investment in the tech sector and beyond.
Run by NRW.Global Business, the state’s investment and trade agency, the Atlanta office will be the state’s third office in the U.S. and first on the East Coast.
The office will be run by Daniel Dueren, a graduate of Valdosta State University who worked for more than seven years in Birmingham, Ala., including more than five years in business development for the accounting firm Rödl & Partner.
“We focus our activities here in particular on tech sectors such as cyber security, finTech or IoT, with biotechnology and of course the logistics industry also playing an important role,” NRW.Global Business CEO Felix Neugart said in a news release, noting the importance of Atlanta as an economic engine in the Southeast U.S. More than 1,500 American companies have operations in his state.
In a separate release, Economics and Innovation Minister Andreas Pinkwart noted that Atlanta is home to numerous companies and “an exciting start-up ecosystem for innovative companies with emerging business models has developed in the region. We want to tap this potential with our new office in Atlanta and present ourselves as a high-performance business partner. This opens up new growth prospects for both sides.”
North Rhine Westphalia is located in western Germany bordering the Netherlands and Belgium. It is home to 18 million people and counts Düsseldorf as its capital and Cologne as its largest city. The latter’s Bonn Airport an important air cargo hub for Atlanta-based United Parcel Service Inc., which operates its German headquarters in the NRW city of Neuss.
Delta Air Lines Inc. is said to be poised to restart a longstanding nonstop flight between Atlanta and Düsseldorf soon.
NRW companies with a presence in Georgia include Thyssenkrupp, whose elevator division just held a grand opening of its test tower in Cobb County, and RWE, an energy company that has invested in a wood pellets plant in the southern part of Georgia.
Since 2020, the Georgia Department of Economic Development has announced investments by NRW-based GEDIA Automotive and and KIRCHHOFF Automotive in Whitfield and Gwinnett counties, respectively, a cumulative investment of about $100 million between two projects that pledged a total of nearly 300 jobs.
Since Mr. Wilson traveled to Germany on an economic development mission in September 2020 — a trip which included a visit to to NRW — German companies have announced $120 million in investments in the state, according to the GDEcD.
Mr. Wilson praised Georgia’s ongoing partnership with Germany, where the state operates its own office — a European hub in the Bavarian city of Munich.
But Georgia is no stranger to NRW, as it’s known, given that the economic development department takes a pavilion at two trade shows in NRW every year: Anuga, a food and beverage show in Cologne, and MEDICA, a medical technology show in Dusseldorf.
“Germany has long been a strategic market for investment, trade, and tourism for the state of Georgia, and our partnerships and trusted relationships are the backbone of our success,” Mr. Wilson said in a news release, adding that “the deepening of our ties will undoubtedly lead to more opportunity for reciprocal business and cultural exchange. Welcome to Georgia.”
Metro Atlanta Chamber President Katie Kirkpatrick also had words of welcome for the NRW team:
“Companies from both North Rhine-Westphalia and Georgia have long viewed each other’s regions as great places to do business, and the Chamber looks forward to working with the team at NRW.Global Business to further strengthen our region’s international trade and investment.”
According to NRW.Global Business, the Atlanta office will cover the Carolinas and Alabama in addition to Georgia.
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