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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowAn Indy Partnership official departed for Germany yesterday on a trade mission promoting economic development opportunities in the 10-county Indianapolis area.
The trip is the third in the past 10 months that Kristie McKillip, the organization’s business development director, has taken to the European country.
More than 65 percent of foreign direct investment in Indiana comes from Europe, according to a July report from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. And German employers represent about 14 percent of all companies and financial investments of foreign origin in the Indianapolis area.
Indy Partnership President and CEO Ron Gifford, who recently returned from traveling with Gov. Mitch Daniels on the state’s trade mission to China and Japan, said his organization is directing its resources toward areas that are most likely to bring jobs to central Indiana.
“More than 14,000 new Indiana jobs have come from Europe since 2004,” Gifford said in a prepared statement. “Maintaining good working relationships with current partners and introducing new European companies to the Indianapolis region is both prudent and proactive.”
Major European companies operating in central Indiana include Switzerland-based Roche and Nestle, Germany-based Siemens and France-based Veolia.
Other German companies operating in central Indiana include Knauf Insulation, Freudenberg-NOK, Festool and Bayer Healthcare.
McKillip said she has 23 meetings scheduled with German advanced-manufacturing companies and renewable-energy firms during the 11-day trip, including meetings with several companies that have existing sales offices in central Indiana.
McKillip also will represent the region at three trade shows in Augsburg, Nuremburg and Stuttgart. She is blogging about the trip.
The Indiana Economic Development Corp. and its European branch office, as well as the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership and Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke Energy, also sent representatives on the trip.
The Indy Partnership is a not-for-profit economic development organization for Indianapolis and nine surrounding counties.
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