Industrial Production

Cologne and The Rhineland are industrial heavyweights

Traditionally, Cologne is one of Germany's strongholds for industrial production. The automobile pioneer Nicolaus Otto invented the four-stroke engine in Cologne in the 1860s and in 1901, one of the world's first mass-produced cars rolled off the production line at Audi founder August Horch's factory in Cologne-Ehrenfeld.

More than 9,600 companies make up Cologne's manufacturing sector. The city's leading market also includes skilled trades and construction, as well as other companies involved in the processing of goods. Together they employ approximately 113,000 people and generate a turnover of 58 billion Euros each year. Nineteen percent of all employees in Cologne are engaged in some form of manufacturing, fabrication or skilled manual labour. The sector generates 29 percent of sales in Cologne's overall economy, which makes it the city's most important market in economic terms.

Industrial production encompasses a broad mix of sub-sectors in Cologne. The most important of those is the automotive industry, which is accelerating the electromobility revolution. Cologne is actually the centre of European electric car production for Ford-Werke GmbH. The US carmaker, which has pledged to abandon the internal combustion engine in their production lines by 2030, is planning to invest one billion euros in Cologne by 2023 for this reason. The second largest automobile manufacturer in the world, Toyota Deutschland GmbH, also has a sales company in Cologne. Furthermore, important suppliers for the national and international automotive industry including Deutz AG and Marelli are situated here.