Invest in France Agency international Office

The region has a total of 9 departments and 7 cities with a population of over 100 000, and a total population of 5 million, which is the equivalent of the state of Minnesota or the Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur region in France. Western France is particularly well connected thanks to high quality infrastructures: it has two international airports and 8 commercial ports.

With 112.7 billion euros of GDP in 2005, equating to 7% of total French GDP, and the equivalent of Portugal, or the states of South Carolina or Louisiana, Western France is a very dynamic region. The Pays de la Loire and Poitou-Charentes regions have 6 university campuses, 23 engineering schools and 19 business schools, 7 000 research scientists, 150 000 students, and a global agro-food cluster “Végétal spécialisé”.

In 2006, international investment enabled 1 477 jobs to be created in the Pays de la Loire and Poitou-Charentes regions. Foreign companies operating in these regions include:

• The English company Carglass: with the launch of its client services center on the Futuroscope site, the group aims to hire approximately 200 employees within three years.

• The Swedish company Mast AB, which aims to hire approximately 40 employees over the next three years at its mast manufacturing plant at Poiré-sur-Vie in the Vendée.

• The Franco-American joint venture Johnson Controls- Saft, which launched its first production line for lithium-ion batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles at the Nersac site in the Charente region.