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Ladies and gentlemen, dear guests, it is our pleasure to present the region Vorpommern as part of the business region Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The economy in MecklenburgVorpommern is characterized especially by innovation, quality, and tradition. Since the reunification of Germany in 1990, there have been major structural changes in the state. Today, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is an attractive and competitive business location. Of course, the state has not been left unscathed by the global crisis in the financial markets and the economy in general. This crisis has had the biggest impact on the ship- and boatbuilding industries in Stralsund, Wolgast, and Greifswald, as well as their suppliers. However, other sectors – such as the food industry in, for example, Garz, Greifswald, Relzow/Anklam, and Pasewalk, the regional trade as well as business services – have hardly been affected. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is famous in both Germany and Europe as an attractive tourist location and as home of a highly productive agriculture and food industry. Vorpommern, especially, has an enormous economic potential beyond tourism because of its location in the southern part of the growth region Baltic Area. There is a potential of about 90 million consumers in the Baltic area. Vorpommern‘s seaports Stralsund and Mukran act as a hub between Scandinavia and the southern part of Central Europe as well as Western Europe and the Baltic states. A modern infrastructure and an offensive, sustainable economic policy which promotes centers of growth while strengthening traditional economic sectors – these are the strong points of our region. All these factors contribute to propagating synergy effects and creating network structures. Tourism, for example, benefits from the development of the health and wellness sector aimed at making Mecklenburg-Vorpommern the leading „health state“ in Germany. Another focal point of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern‘s government is to create knowledge-based jobs. In 2006, the promotion of technology has been aimed at this area. The funding of collaborative research – a symbiosis of science and smaller medium-sized enterprises – is excellent. Researchers can be funded up to 100 %, and their projects up to 50 %.