Netherlands wooing 250 firms for Brexit move
February 9, 2019
The Dutch government said on Saturday it was in talks with 250 companies working out of Britain about moving operations to the Netherlands ahead of Britain's exit from the European Union scheduled for March 29.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy said its efforts had attracted millions of euros in Brexit-related investments last year. Some 42 companies or branch offices moved to the Netherlands in 2018 as a result of Brexit, accounting for 1,923 jobs and some €291 million ($330 million) in investments, it said in a report.
The report named European Medicines Agency (EMA), Japanese investment bank Norinchukin, media company TVT Media, financial services providers MarketAxess and Azimo, and maritime insurer UK P&I Club among movers.
The ministry said several companies, including media firms Discovery and Bloomberg, have already pledged to invest in the Netherlands this year because of Brexit.
'Reconsidering European structure'
The 250 companies that the Dutch government is trying to woo are predominantly British companies "but also American and Asian organizations that are reconsidering their current European structure due to uncertainties caused by Brexit," it said.
"These include companies in the financial sector, media and advertising, life sciences & health and logistics," the ministry said.
In addition to the Netherlands, the companies were also looking at options in other EU countries such as Germany, France and Ireland, the report said.
Chicago's Cboe Global Markets, the London Stock Exchange Group and Panasonic are some of the other companies that have either moved some operations to the Netherlands or have hinted at doing so.
Nurses wanted
Meanwhile, a hospital in Germany has run advertisements in British newspapers in the hope of attracting Polish nurses worried about their future in the view of Brexit.
The advertisements, titled "Brexit worries, come to Germany," were published by the Düsseldorf University Hospital in two Polish-language papers, Germany's Spiegel news magazine said.
"Not only do we have the better pay, better social benefits and better working hours, we also have the better weather, the better food and the shorter way to Poland," the advertisement read.
Germany faces an acute shortage of care workers with some 38,000 unfilled posts.
"All hospitals in Germany are desperately looking for nurses, even the University of Düsseldorf," hospital spokesman Tobias Pott told Spiegel, when asked about the advertisements.