Key figures of Auvergne Rhône-Alpes

Les ECHOS : VINCENT CHARBONNIER / LYON CORRESPONDENT

• Regional elections: key figures for Auvergne Rhône-Alpes

Auvergne Rhône-Alpes is a rich region but with industrial and territorial fragilities.

Urban and mountainous, industrial and tourist. The characteristics of the new Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region are contrasting. Slightly less than 30% of its 7.8 million inhabitants live at an altitude of more than 700 m and one third in its five largest urban areas. With a gross domestic product of 240 billion euros, it ranks among the eight richest European regions, ahead of Catalonia and Veneto, behind Lombardy and Bavaria.

Open up certain areas

Its industry remains relatively strong with solid positions in metallurgy, rubber, chemicals, aeronautics and pharmaceuticals, but remains an “intermediate weight” on the European scale. Industrial employment has fallen by 15% over the last 15 years, and has declined much more than in the major German regions. Groups such as Michelin and Casino, Sanofi and Somfy, play a dominant role, employing around 50% of the workforce and making a major contribution to the regional trade surplus.

The distribution of growth remains a “major challenge”, according to the Institut Montaigne. This growth could be concentrated in the most dynamic areas around the Rhone Valley, in the Lyon metropolitan area, to the detriment of areas that are already relegated. Some infrastructure projects, both rail and road, could help to open up certain areas and improve the irrigation of the regional economy.

Researchers and students

France’s second most popular tourist region behind Ile-de-France, but ahead of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Auvergne Rhône-Alpes is also attractive to researchers and students. 15% of engineers trained in France are trained in Lyon, Grenoble, Clermont-Ferrand and Saint-Etienne. 6.5 billion, or 2.7% of the region’s GDP, is invested in research each year.

The new region can also rely on 15 competitiveness clusters and 19 clusters that will have to work together more to implement the regional innovation strategy in conjunction with the smallest companies (with less than 10 employees), which represent 94% of the total number of companies in Auvergne Rhône-Alpes.