Economy
Economic activities were mainly industrial. Breda was a center of the food- and drinking industry. Companies like Hero (lemonade), Van Melle (Mentos), De Faam (liquorice) and Kwatta (chocolate) are famous throughout Western Europe. Breda also had a sugar factory, supplying its best-known products. BREDA beer is a world renowned drink that is made in this region.
Breda formerly housed the largest brewery in the Netherlands (Oranjeboom). Interbrew, the Belgian owner of the brewery, closed the brewery in 2004. On closing of Oranjeboom Brewery, Breda beer production was moved to both Bremen and Leuven. Until 2008 when Randalls Brewery (in Guernsey) acquired the licence. Guernsey is now the only place in the world where draught Breda is brewed.
The decline of industrial activity did not harm the city's economy. The main economic activities now are business and trade. With the new Central Station built in 2011, Breda is now connected by high-speed trains to the main European cities. After 2009, a high-speed shuttle connects Breda to Rotterdam – The Hague / Amsterdam and Antwerp – Brussels, on the HSL-Zuid line.
Read more about this topic: Breda
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“Quidquid luce fuit tenebris agit: but also the other way around. What we experience in dreams, so long as we experience it frequently, is in the end just as much a part of the total economy of our soul as anything we “really” experience: because of it we are richer or poorer, are sensitive to one need more or less, and are eventually guided a little by our dream-habits in broad daylight and even in the most cheerful moments occupying our waking spirit.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“War. Fighting. Men ... every man in the whole realm is in the army.... Every man in uniform ... An economy entirely geared to war ... but there is not much war ... hardly any fighting ... yet every man a soldier from birth till death ... Men ... all men for fighting ... but no war, no wars to fight ... what is it, what does it mean?””
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)