NGlobal Magazin 01-2010

Deutsche Messe expands to Latin America

Niedersachsen Global www.nglobal.de 64 Places Column “Come over to Hannover!” Whatever could the south German industrial vil- lage of Emmingen, the Basque city of Bilbao and the Chinese provincial capital of Hangzhou have in common? Easy: there and now—like every year and in countless other towns and cities around the world—exists a restlessness in businesses. “Come over to Hannover” was the rhyming exhortation of a handwritten poster stuck. Adrenalin, itchy feet, entrepreneurial optimism… Why else put up with the crazy stress of mak- ing perfect preparations only to succumb to last- minute pre-show panic about whether those bro- chures, precious products (or staff) will turn up at Hannover’s exhibition halls on time? Hundreds of thousands, coming over to Hannover… ‘Hannover’ has become, for all of them, the global trademark trade fair. And you have to hand it to the Hannoverians, an easygoing, open-minded folk. In Hannover, there are literally thousands of families who pull out the sofa bed or clear out the children’s room for perfect strangers from the four corners of the earth. For me as a start-up boss, my staff’s reports on their private accommodations are a regular item at the morning meeting: the annual reunion with the Bar- bie dolls; the solo aria by the opera singer to wel- come the guests; the temporary accommodation in the Buddhist temple at the exhibition ground. Hannoverians’ immaculate German pronunciation is matched only by Hannover’s German breakfast: fresh bread rolls from the corner bakery, butter and jam and cheese and ham and eggs and gallons of coffee—heavenly calm before the storm. Ironing board and needle and thread for sartorial emergen- cies, hot lemon to fend off an impending cold, an ice-cold beer late in the evening—the very stuff of friendship and fond memories of Hannover. A trade fair week without Hannoverian company? Like Laatzen without the ICE train station. Hans Gäng, CEO of local global GmbH in Stuttgart,  has been a regular visitor to CeBIT and Hannover  Messe since the nineties. Around 1.2 million people live in the Hannover region, an area covering approxi- mately 2,300 square kilometres.The inhabitants account for 15 percent of Nieder- sachsen’s population, 18 percent of its jobs and generate around 20 percent of its gross domestic product. Competitive Infrastructure Thanks to the World Exposition EXPO 2000, Hannover has one of the best com- munications infrastructures in the world. More and more start-up businesses are exploiting this advantage and are coming up with business ideas that sharpen the profile of Hannover as a business location. Some ten million people live in the catchment area of Hannover’s Langenhagen Airport, from where they can travel to destinations throughout the world. And Hannover is also becoming more and more important as a freight traffic hub: The German Railway Company has heavily invested in Seelze marshalling yard, which occupies a leading position in Germany. As a Metropolitan Region, the Hannover-Braunschweig-Göttingen-Wolfsburg ag- glomeration can boast a unique combination of economic, academic and cultural potential, and, by concentrating these strengths it is able to make its mark in the competition between national and international locations. As a hub of interna- tional flows of traffic, trade and information, it unites a remarkable variety of com- by Hans Gäng