Germany is losing speed. And Papenburg builds ships that exist nowhere else.

This week I read a column that has not let go of me. Henrik Müller, professor of economics in Dortmund, describes in it soberly and incorruptibly how Germany is falling behind. Since the pandemic, one of the weakest developments of all mature economies. Productivity is limping, industry is shrinking, the level of prosperity is drifting toward the zero line. The USA is growing, the eurozone is growing, Germany stands still.

He is right. And still, while reading it, the whole time I looked out of the window of my own company visit this week and thought: come here once, dear Mr Müller. Come to Papenburg.

The statistics see the big picture, not the special case

Müller writes a sentence about German industry that hurts. The car makers are struggling, the suppliers are struggling, energy prices are hitting the chemical industry. He mentions shipbuilding almost in passing. That is exactly where I am at home.

Because what is created here on the Ems does not really show up in any productivity statistic. One of the largest cruise ships in the world, built in a town with 37,000 inhabitants, in the middle of the rural Emsland. That is not mass-produced goods that China can make more cheaply. That is value creation that almost nobody in the world can manage. Highly complex, handmade, exported across half the globe.

The big number sees Germany in reverse gear. The small, concrete truth is this: in some places, world class is launched. Papenburg is such a place.

Müller’s question is the right one

Müller asks a question that has occupied me for days. Why should well-educated people work here of all places and make this the center of their lives, when elsewhere they benefit from a tailwind? Who then pays into the social systems, who founds companies, who pulls others along?

That is exactly the right question. Only it is not answered in Berlin. It is answered in Papenburg, street by street, company by company.

An engineer does not come here because federal growth stands at 0.5 percent. He comes because he finds a job here that challenges him. Because his children get a day-care place. Because his wife finds work and both of them are in a town in the evening where something is going on. The quality of a location is decided on the ground. That is where I have influence, and that is where I want to use it.

What a town can do against the big trend

Müller names the levers at federal level. Education, research, growth capital, away with European hurdles. All of it correct, none of it my department. My department is the level below, and that one is not small.

Skill, not just hands. Müller measures productivity as value creation per capita. Whoever wants every employee to create more value starts with training. A town that takes school, vocational training and further education seriously and interlocks them closely with its companies raises productivity from below. That is not a Berlin lever, that is a Papenburg one.

The network, not just the name. When shipbuilding comes up, everyone thinks of the one big hall. The real productivity miracle is the many small suppliers around it, high precision from family businesses that hardly anyone else delivers this way. This network is vulnerable. If one company is lost, skill is lost that you cannot buy back. A town that secures this fabric, with short routes and reliable procedures, holds on to more productivity than any Sunday speech.

Space, before the investor moves on. Anyone who wants to grow in Papenburg must not get the answer only once the decision has long since been made somewhere else. Growth needs land that is ready, not land that is still being examined. That is location policy with lead time instead of running behind.

Building up, not complaining

In over 25 years of professional experience, 8 of them in this city’s economic development, I have learned that location policy is not a self-runner. It is daily work. Müller’s column describes what happens when you let it slide. Over five, ten years a country loses its substance.

That is exactly why I do not start with the complaint, but with what is already there. Papenburg has an industry that others envy us for. A port that means work and value creation. People who are good at what they do. We celebrate this strength too rarely and we defend it too quietly.

I do not turn the big trend around. But I can make sure that Papenburg stands on the right side of it. A possibility-maker is not the one who describes the decline best. A possibility-maker is the one who makes what exists strong and enables the next thing.

Papenburg can do more. And Papenburg can do what hardly any town of this size can.

What makes Papenburg strong for you, and where are we leaving potential untouched? Feel free to write to me, by email or through the contact form. I am reading along and I answer.