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LORRAINE
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GEOGRAPHY AND DEMOGRAPHY
Situated on France's borders, Lorraine borders Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg. The region comprises four départements (Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Moselle and Vosges) and occupies 23 547 km2. The Lorraine region is geographically divided into two distinct parts: the plateau of Lorraine, occupying some five-sixths of the land area, and the Vosges mountains in the east, rising to almost 1,400m. The role of regional capital is shared between Nancy and Metz. The region has a population of 2,328,679 inhabitants, 3.8% of the population of France. The region ranks 10th in terms of population out of the 26 regions of France. With a population density of 98.2 inhabitants per km2 it ranks 12th on the national scale.
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INFRASTRUCTURES
Lorraine, close to the Rhine corridor at the heart of Europe, has good transport and communications networks, road (road network of the region have 1 291 km of national roads), motorway (about 480 km), and railroads.
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ECONOMY
Lorraine accounts for 3.2% of the GDP of France. With a GDP per inhabitant of 19 177 euro the region is low on the national scale (ranking 16th). In the region, industry accounts for about 25.7% of gross value added of the Lorraine, market services for 42.4%, construction for 5.0% and agriculture for 2.5%. Lorraine's specialization is the production of intermediate goods (such as the timber industry and the chemical industry) which reaches 45.3% of the region's industrial valued added. With the construction of the Cattenom nuclear power complex, the region has developed the nuclear energy production to the highest degree (Lorraine generates 9% of France's nuclear energy production). Its energy sector accounts for 11% of the regions industrial value added. Agriculture is important for the regional development, in fact Lorraine produces 4% of France's cereal production and 11% of France's rape production.
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LABOUR MARKET
The activity rate of the population aged 15 years and over is above the average for metropolitan France at 55.9% in 2001. The activity rate for 15 to 24 year olds is higher than for metropolitan France as a whole, whereas for those aged 25 and over the activity is slightly lower. The same is true for the activity rates of women.
Job creation is still below the national average. The weight of the industrial past is still a burden in Lorraine. Between 1996 and 2001 the annual average growth rate of employment in Lorraine was the lowest with the regions of Champagne-Ardenne and Picardie: 1.1%. Whereas, the annual average growth rate of employees in the region was +1.4%, the number of self-employed was -1.8%. Indeed, a feature of the region is that there are few self-employed (in farming or elsewhere). The share of self-employed, which is below the national average, fell from 8.0% in 1996 to 6.9% in 2001.
There are 825,600 employees in the region (52.10% of the population). The unemployment rate is 11.01% of the active population (the female rate is 13%). The employment rate is 46.30% (male employment rate is 54.90%, while the female one is 38.40%). The percentage of total employment in services sector is 67%, while 29.7% work in industry sector, and 2.94% in agricultural one.
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DATA RELATED TO REGIONAL STRUCTURAL FUNDS MECHANISMS
Parts of the region belong to EU objective 2 plus phasing out, for the period 2000-2006.
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RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
The region spends 1.38% of its GDP in Research and Development. The total amount of private investments in Research and development is 0.60%, 0.10% from Government investments and 0.48% from University investments.
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DATA RELATED TO REGIONAL PROGRAMME OF INNOVATIVE ACTIONS
Lorraine's RPIA ran during the period 2002-2003. The total budget for the programme was Euro 5.067 million (EU - Euro 2.534 million, Public - Euro 2.234 million, Private - Euro 0.3 million ).
The RPIA in Lorraine aims to provide a coherent regional strategy and a programme of actions capable of valorising the region's attributes and overcoming its weaknesses and geogrpahsical limits.
The programme leads mainly to the reinforcement of regional competitiveness and its dynamic nature through the uses of strategic tools and of economic intelligence, the reinforcement of economic and social cohesion and of regional solidarity for the diffusion of good practices, the animation of networks and technological transfer, the optimisation of performances in the economic sector through the stimulation of creativity, innovation and the spirit of enterprise.
In more concrete terms, the programme was carried out through the following actions: A global device providing strategic information to raise awareness and provide training among economic actors; The implementation of a technological and commercial incubator; The use of ICT to provide distance training to a wide public.
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