organisation
The municipality of Almere
It is expected that the Almere municipality will have an estimated population of 350,000 inhabitants in the future. This means that the city’s economic foundations would have to be built on that assumption. Almere and the surrounding region offer an extremely attractive business environment for enterprise, as well as for institutions. The municipality has the perfect strategic location, both literally and figuratively, to ensure a thriving and pleasant business and living environment.
The scope of the regional economic profile will be expanded within the Almere municipality to create a better balance between living and working. Population growth in the municipality of Almere has, for some time now, been higher than the national average and it is expected to remain so in the future. This means that the working population is growing faster than the currently available employment opportunities, which, in turn, means that it is essential to attract new business to the region. To stimulate new business formation in the region, the municipality of Almere has formulated a number of spearheads for its economic policy.
The new policy is formulated in the form of four objectives:
- The development of promising market segments
- The improved utilization of existing companies and institutions
- The quality of service provision
- The improvement of the business formation climate
The municipality of Almere has launched two projects to improve the way in which the creative industry can be embedded into its policy:
- The 'Voetnoot' Plan: the development of an incubator for the art and creative industry in the city centre
- Almere Kennisstad (Knowledge City): a cooperative organisation between businesses and (knowledge) institutions.
To stimulate growth in the employment market in the region, the municipality is actively marketing in a number of segments. In concrete terms this means that the Media / ICT and Fashion & Design sectors are considered the most promising. The latter sector is a robust international growth market in Europe. Brandboxx Almere is a burgeoning commercial zone thanks to the growth of the latter sector.
Architectuurcentrum Casla (Casla Centre of Architecture) was established to stimulate growth in the commercial services sector. In addition, Almere also launched a pilot broadband Internet connection programme for the entire city. This initiative serves to draw ICT companies to establish their business in and around Almere.
Almere is a partner in the CCAA project because it wishes to profile the city as an ICT centre. The added value for Almere in cooperating with other cities in the Noordvleugel is that Almere could benefit from the strategic location and proximity to Amsterdam and Hilversum.