An attractive environment for businesses

Home to 120,000 enterprises

Hamburg is one of the most attractive business locations in Northern Europe – not just for Germany’s leading corporations, but also for many foreign companies. Three out of four employees work in the services sector, making this the predominant segment of the region’s economic structure. Beyond that, Hamburg is an important centre of industry. There are over 120,000 enterprises registered at the Chamber of Commerce.

A number of innovative growth industries are represented in Hamburg, most notably in the fields of port & logistics, life sciences, the aviation industry, and media & IT. Other key sectors are renewable energies and trade relations with Asia, with a particular focus on China.

An essential locational advantage is the fact that Hamburg’s business community and public authorities have a history of concerted action to support the development of growth clusters. Media and IT companies were the first to enter into a public-private partnership with the city in 1997, establishing the initiative “hamburg@work”. The joint initiative “Hamburg – The Place for Aviation” and the “Logistics Initiative Hamburg” followed. The state of Schleswig-Holstein became an additional partner when the life sciences initiative “norgenta” was formed.

Strong services

Services are Hamburg’s most important and fastest-growing industry. Roughly half of over 120,000 enterprises registered at the Chamber of Commerce are service companies, and approximately 500,000 people work in this sector. The high level of demand from businesses in the metropolitan region, backed by sheer purchasing power, is the main reason for this concentration of service industries. Its long history of being a “Gateway to the World” makes Hamburg an ideal location for export-oriented services.

The extraordinary innovative capacity of Hamburg’s businesses presents an additional advantage. With over 20,000 companies, the information and communications industry is the largest segment of the service sector in Hamburg, followed by 17,000 corporate service providers. The workforceis growing at an annual rate of approximately five percent.

Made in Hamburg

Many industrial enterprises from Hamburg are setting global benchmarks. Norddeutsche Affinerie is one of the world’s major copper mills and one of the reasons why Hamburg’s industry has earned a reputation of implementing high standards of environmental and social responsibility. Montblanc has gained international renown for the quality and refinement of its writing instruments. Companies such as Beiersdorf AG – maker of Nivea and Tesa brand products –, Bode Chemie, Eppendorf, Philips Medizin Systeme, Olympus and Winter & Ibe are pioneers in the field of life sciences. Blohm & Voss, Airbus and Lufthansa Technik are among those enterprises that make Hamburg a leader in ship and aircraft construction and repair. Some of the world’s most efficient oil and water separators are manufactured by Norddeutsche Filter-Vertriebsgesellschaft. Hamburg is also home toone of the blue chip companies of the semiconductor industry, NXP Semiconductors.

Knowledge pool: Hamburg’s universities

A capital of knowledge, Hamburg boasts six state and ten private universities, as well as four state universities in the greater metropolitan area, making it the academic home of more than 90,000 students, including 11,000 foreign students. These institutions range from the University of Hamburg, which is the largest facility with course offerings in more than 90 different fields of study, to HafenCity University Hamburg with its exclusive focus on the built environment. Other institutions with an outstanding international reputation are the University of Applied Sciences and the Hamburg University of Technology in Harburg with its Northern Institute of Technology and Hamburg School of Logistics. The private Bucerius Law School and the University of Lüneburg also attract bright minds each year from Germany and abroad.

From research to innovation

Excellent public and private universities as well as renowned research institutes draw penetrating minds to Hamburg from near and far. More than 9,000 researchers and 90,000 students are an invaluable intellectual asset for Hamburg’s scientific community: Their work and ideas are essential to keeping the metropolitan region a centre of innovation and new discoveries. In recognition of this fact, more and more companies cooperate closely with the various institutions.

Scientific success has many faces:

The Bernhard Nocht Institute, which specializes in infectious diseases, made international headlines in 2003 by identifying the SARS virus.

The German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) conducts basic research with a focus on particle physics, photon science and accelerator development. One of DESY’s projects utilizes an X-ray laser, the only one of its kind in Europe, to produce sequences of high resolution radiographs of chemical processes at the atomic level.

Another example is the Center for Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (ZMAW), world leader in oceanic, climate and earth system research. Hamburg is particularly well-positioned in the field of climate research and emerging as a new competence centre.

The marketing capital

The northern climate is conducive to creative ideas. Numerous world-famous brand-name articles are produced here, while their design, award-winning advertising and successful marketing also originate from Hamburg, the capital of German marketing.

The design capital

Hamburg’s almost 2200 resident designers and design offices make it the design metropolis of Germany. The spectrum of design being developed in Hamburg ranges from fashion, jewellery, glass and textiles to industrial and product design, from interior and trade fair design to communications, packaging, corporate, web and brand design for products, enterprises, services and brands.