MINISTER PRESIDENT PEER STEINBRÜCK: “FURTHER STRENGTHENING NORTH RHINE-WESTPHALIA’S INDUSTRY AND ENERGY BASE"
"The Government of North Rhine-Westphalia acknowledges unconditionally that NRW is an industry and energy base and intends to strengthen this further."
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Conference of Works Councils |
This was made quite clear by Minister President Peer Steinbrück in his address to some five hundred works council representatives of Deutsche Steinkohle AG (DSK) in Castrop-Rauxel:
‘Serious developments in the global energy and raw-materials markets in the past year have shown that it is sensible to go for an energy mix in which indigenous coal has a fixed role to play. This is the basis for an industrial value chain in NRW that stretches from the mining suppliers via the mining industry, the power station sector and the plant engineering industry through to the supply of energy and coke’, the Minister President pointed out. Current developments in energy prices have only served to underline the importance of the follow-up regulation for the domestic coal industry, as agreed between Ruhrkohle AG, the Mining, Chemical and Energy Industrial Unions, the Federal Government and the State Government, which gives the mining industry secure prospects up to the year 2012. Many North Rhine-Westphalian companies operating in the engineering, chemicals and steel sectors are global leaders in their field and are reliant not only on secure raw materials and energy supplies but also on stable and predictable prices.’ The Minister President went on: ‘Even leading car manufacturers in Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria depend on supplies of high-tech products from the coal-coke-steel value chain.
Here too – if only indirectly – jobs depend on reliable supplies of energy and raw materials that have strong roots here in North Rhine-Westphalia.’ The dramatic price rises that have affected many natural resources threaten the economic development of many important sectors of German industry, and especially the steel and metalworking sector that is concentrated around small and medium-sized undertakings. In this context the Minister President welcomed the National Raw-Materials Conference being planned for Berlin on 8th March. This event, which would bring together key decision makers from Government and industry, was aimed at improving the conditions that exist in Germany for a stable and reliable supply of raw materials. “
Press release from the NRW Press and Information Office, Dusseldorf,
20.01.2005
Source: www.nrw.de
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