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| Hanseatic City of Lübeck and Schleswig-Holstein State Government give Dräger Medical option to improve site / Dräger Medical: other sights also strong contenders / Flexibility and costs of labour remain key factor in choice of site / Investments of 50 to 70 million euros planned |
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| Lübeck, 11.10.2004 – As announced by Drägerwerk AG, Lübeck, a concept was presented today at Dräger by Lübeck Mayor Bernd Saxe on behalf of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck and Economics Minister Dr Bernd Rohwer on behalf of the Schleswig-Holstein State Government with a view to strengthening Dräger Medical's current site in Lübeck. |
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| Essentially, the concept concerns how the state and the city might be able to help Dräger – despite changed framework conditions, and specifically the increased pressure on prices and costs – to set up a new company headquarters and modern production facility for Dräger Medical here in Lübeck. |
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| Dräger welcomes the proposals put forward by the City of Lübeck and the State Government, particularly the state's investment contribution, the partial closure of Finkenstrasse and the Schwarzer Weg – public roads which currently intersect the company's grounds – and structural measures designed to improve traffic links. The measures presented will now be taken into account during the further course of the company's analyses and site evaluations. |
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| Dräger, or more precisely the two internal working groups responsible, will be sticking to the original timetable of reaching a decision by the end of December 2004 and will give full consideration to all factors for and against the different possible sites. According to Theo Dräger, Executive Board Chairman of Drägerwerk AG, the key issue at stake, as already stressed on a number of occasions in the past, is to improve the costs situation to allow the company to remain globally competitive from its Lübeck base despite the fact that more than 80 percent of sales are generated outside Germany. This also includes considerably improving the flexibility and costs of labour, which is why other interesting sites are also being looked at, e.g. in the nearby Hamburg or Mecklenburg regions, in the Czech Republic or in Shanghai. In Shanghai, for instance, the existing production plant could be expanded at much lower costs and with a high level of flexibility. |
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| As reported, around 1,700 Dräger Medical staff in Lübeck are affected by the site issue. If a decision is made in favour of remaining in Lübeck, Theo Dräger estimates that the investment volume needed for a new company headquarters and plant in the city would be 50 to 70 million euros, and that the new work processes would if anything result in an increase in the proportion of highly skilled workplaces. Since the end of 2000, despite a variety of restructuring measures at the Lübeck site, Dräger Medical AG & Co. KGaA's workforce has grown by 127 employees, or around 8 percent. Overall, the total wage and salary bill at Dräger Medical AG & Co. KGaA rose by as much as 25.3 percent to 93 million euros over the same period. Higher skilled staff were recruited to very many positions, which for the Lübeck region means an equivalent rise in purchasing power. |
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(c) Drägerwerk AG & Co. KGaA, 2007 |
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