Factories flourishing despite the crisis

Today, Les Echos published an article on plant openings in France, based on figures from our study on investment in France in 2009. Even in the automotive sector, a few new sites were opened in 2009 - mostly to replace nearby obsolete sites.The article is completed by a map showing seventeen industrial sites scheduled to open in the near future.Even so, the trend is strongly negative, with over 80,000 jobs lost in the manufacturing industry, and the number of site closures in the manufacturing sector twice as high as the number of site creations. Denis Cosnard, the article's author, concludes by quoting Patrick Artus, Director of Research at Natixis: " We fear that, despite the efforts made in the United States and Europe (support for innovation, higher education, new technologies in renewable energies, etc.), the reindustrialization of these countries will be extremely difficult, particularly with the policies pursued in China.On a positive note, our Investment Observatory continues to show a positive job creation balance since the beginning of the year.