Region of Freiberg To evaluate the development potentials from the region of Freiberg, the following key factors will be taken into account and described. • Demography • specialists / qualifications • social factors • Economy • Climate change • Availability of natural resources
Current trends in selected areas of action
Basic materials High-Tech products from the silicon and gallium arsenide materials for the chip industry and solar technology affect the economic power of the region of Freiberg essentially. Alongside, a strong and very widespread metal-producing and manufacturing industry exists. New basic materials are an essential component of these highly innovative fields of technology. Thus, energy- and process engineering without resilient construction materials, as well as microelectronics without high-purity semi-conducting materials would not be possible. Thesis: Regional enterprises from the branches metal working/ materials, for which the sourcing of raw- and metallic materials stays a dominating expense factor, are confronted with existential problems connected with impending loss of workstations. Merely enterprises which introduce material-efficient manufacturing processes, as well as development works to intensify the substitution of expensive and short metallic materials, are able to distance from this development.
Energy For the past five years the power authorities face an intensified competition. The market launches for renewable energies, the CO2- emission trading, further deregulation of the energy sector, as well as the law for backing out of the nuclear energy programme, prove a growing importance of renewable energies. However, the European Union is prospectively in great dependence to political and economic unstable producing- and transit countries because of the increasing energy consumption. Thesis: A disuse of the potentials of innovative energy technologies in the region of Freiberg will lead to an aggravation of regional conditions regarding location and to an economic stagnation of the region
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