US retail giant Amazon is expected to announce a 1.2-billion-euro investment in France, the French government said on Sunday, while pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and AstroZeneca have pledged nearly 1 billion euros ahead of the annual Choose France summit on foreign investment which strats on Monday, reports FRANCE 24.
Pfizer said it would invest 500 million euros in France to build up its research and development presence in the country while AstraZeneca announced an investment of 360 million euros for its site at Dunkirk.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Sunday that the new office from Wall Street bank Morgan Stanley, dubbed as its new European campus, would create 100 more jobs in Paris.
He added that German aviation firm Lilium would invest 400 million euros in a factory while Swiss-based firm KL1 would commit 300 million euros of funds in a nickel refining site. Those two investments, combined, could create more than 1,000 jobs.
Le Maire was speaking as President Emmanuel Macron was set to host the annual Choose France event on Monday aimed at wooing overseas businesses and investors.
It added that GSK would also announce new investments while Accenture would announce plans to set up new jobs in the artificial intelligence sector.
The Choose France event comes as France, the euro zone’s second-biggest economy, faces concerns over its budget deficit while its growth in the first quarter was just 0.2 percent.