HQ Team
May 13, 2024: Pfizer and AstraZeneca will invest about $1 billion separately in France to set up and expand facilities, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said, according to a publicly-funded television network, France 24.
Pfizer would invest $538.5 million to contract its research and development facility while AstraZeneca unveiled a $388 plan for expanding its Dunkirk site.
France is set to start its Choose France summit on May 13, to attract overseas investors and businesses.
President Emmanuel Macron will host 180 CEOs and executives at the Chateau de Versailles for the summit, Le Maire said.
Simplify regulations
The event, now in its seventh year, is part of a push by Macron’s government to re-industrialise the country, simplify its regulations to attract foreign companies, and make it a financial hub for the post-Brexit European Union.
France and the European Union still had to do more against competition from China and the US, Le Maire told reporters in Paris.
During an upcoming EU meeting in Brussels, France would reaffirm the need for a capital markets union to facilitate investments into new areas of the economy such as renewable energy and artificial intelligence.
“New industries and the new economy need massive amounts of capital,” Le Maire said. We urgently need to take concrete steps to get the capital markets union going. I will be able to go to Brussels at the start of this week to once again make the case for this capital markets union.”
‘Needs money’
“Europe needs money. If not, it will continue to lose out in terms of productivity to the United States and China,” he added.
Last year the Choose France event raised 13 billion euros of foreign investments.
The Elysee said that Amazon is set to spend 1.2 billion euros on projects that include reinforcing the e-commerce company’s logistics and increasing computing capacities, especially dedicated to artificial intelligence, in its cloud division AWS.
German aviation firm Lilium would invest 400 million euros in a factory, while Swiss-based firm KL1 would commit 300 million euros to fund a nickel refining site, he said.
GSK would also announce new investments while Accenture would announce plans to set up new jobs in the artificial intelligence sector. First Abu Dhabi Bank and Nigeria’s Zenith Bank are also set to open offices in Paris.
Below forecast
The Choose France event is happening when the country, the euro zone’s second-biggest economy, faces concerns over its budget deficit while its growth in the first quarter was just 0.2 per cent.
According to the European Commission, France’s Gross Domestic Product is estimated to have grown by 0.9% in 2023, driven by strong growth in the second quarter. This was marginally below the autumn 2023 forecast.
“High inflation and tighter financial conditions weighed on growth throughout the year despite government support measures and a very favourable labour market, accompanied by dynamic wages that preserved households’ purchasing power.”
While net exports contributed positively to growth, these were fuelled mostly by a decrease in imports of goods, as the growth of domestic demand was limited, according to the commission.
