With its strong international outlook and based in a region with logistics potential, Saint-Etienne Métropole enjoys the benefit of a dense communications network which provides easy links to both the French domestic market and the markets of Northern and Southern Europe.

A rich industrial tradition

Rooted deep within the local community, the region draws upon a considerable wealth of specific skills and expertise.

Services to business highly effective research laboratories

Specialised machine and process designers and software engineers strengthen the innovative potential of the local economy still further.

Centres of excellence

Saint-Etienne Métropole encourages and assists the pooling of skills into profitable industries.
These centres provide a forum for all research, training, industry and local government players, promoting information exchange, communication and technological innovation. These Centres of Excellence have, in turn, created Centres of Excellence.

Competitiveness clusters

The Loire region has a direct involvement in six of the sixty-six competitiveness clusters designated by the French government

• VIAMECA
• ICI (Industrial Creation and Engineering) (french version)

• TECHTERA (french version)

• Sporaltec

• Urban Trucks and Bus 2015

• MINALOGIC

• Chemistry and Environment AXELERA (you could find a pdf version presenting this competitiveness cluster, by clicking on "anglaise" in the section "fiche de présentation Axelera")
  
  

Assistance with dynamic economic areas

Saint-Etienne Métropole is investing in project assistance by developing dedicated sites and adding value to our technological centres, which are surrounded by one of the densest concentrations of SMEs/SMIs in France, consisting of 11,000 companies.
Activities zone sheet

Attractive local standard of living

From the edges of the Auvergne region to the Rhône valley, Saint-Etienne Métropole can boast an exceptional, well-preserved natural local environment; in addition, the city centre was also named a 'Town of Art and History' in 2000.
An integrated part of the network of major population centres in the Rhône-Alpes region (Lyon and Grenoble), it benefits from their proximity and the resulting economic and cultural exchanges they afford.