SPD on the economy

The SPD wants to make Saxony a state of climate-neutral future industries and puts innovation funding at the center of its economic policy. It relies on rapid digitalization, climate-neutral energy, and strong infrastructure. The transition is to be socially acceptable.

The SPD wants to support new industries in Saxony. They should not harm the climate. The state should back new ideas and new technology. The change should be fair for everyone.

The platform names innovation and infrastructure as decisive for the current decade. It commits to climate neutrality by 2045 and argues that front-runners gain a competitive edge. The SPD pursues strategies like the one for the Silicon Saxony microelectronics hub for mechanical and plant engineering, metal production, and energy and environmental technology as well, along with hydrogen and electric mobility. The party concedes that the transformation will bring high costs at first but expects cheap energy and good jobs in the long run.

The SPD wants to focus state funding mainly on small and medium-sized firms and the skilled trades. The aim is to help them manage the shift to digitalization, automation and renewable energy, for which the platform says they often lack money, know-how or time.

The SPD wants to help small firms and the skilled trades. They should be able to use new technology. This includes robots and artificial intelligence. The state should give funding for this.

The money is to come from the "Regionales Wachstum" (regional growth) investment program, the Just Transition Fund, the digitalization fund and skilled-labor funding. It should bring automation and artificial intelligence into these firms and pay for additional real-world labs for innovation projects. The future platform for social innovation is to be expanded. The SPD sees large company settlements as a driver of the regional economy because they bring business to small firms, trades and retail.

The SPD wants to eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy for businesses and the skilled trades and simplify administrative procedures. Funding applications are to be handled entirely digitally through a single portal.

The SPD wants less paperwork for businesses. Firms should apply for funding online. There should be one single portal for this. The state should only check random samples.

The portal is to cover the whole course of a funding procedure digitally. The plan also includes minimum thresholds and flat rates for personnel and planning costs. Instead of checking every detail, authorities are to audit by random sampling. The platform presents this as help for businesses during the economic transition.

The SPD plans a broad initiative for the skilled trades and wants to review every policy area for ways to support these businesses. The Meisterbonus (a grant for master craftsman graduates) is to be raised, recruitment of young people promoted, and hiring skilled workers from non-EU countries made easier.

The SPD wants to help the skilled trades. People who become master craftsmen should get a bigger bonus. Firms should find it easier to hire skilled workers from abroad. Young people should get to know the trades better.

Firms are to face less bureaucratic and financial effort when hiring skilled workers from non-EU countries. Incentives for internships and apprenticeships and subsidized job fairs are meant to help small rural firms in particular find trainees. Inter-company vocational training centers are to be strengthened, and the state is to cover part of the course costs for inter-company training. The SPD also wants to involve the trades more closely in planning the climate-neutral transition and to promote robots and artificial intelligence there.

The SPD wants to respond to the labor shortage with automation, artificial intelligence and robotics. Top-level research and its transfer to companies are to be expanded, and small businesses advised and supported through the transition.

Soon there will be fewer workers. So machines and computers should take on more work. The SPD wants to fund research on this. Small companies and skilled trades should get help and advice.

According to the platform, the worker shortage cannot be fully fixed, so new ways of getting by with fewer staff are needed. Works councils and staff councils are seen as central players in this. State funding is to focus on skilled trades and mid-sized firms and support key technologies as well as research on digitalization and automation. Public services are also meant to lead the way in using innovations.

The SPD wants to create a "Sachsenfonds 2050" through which the state invests at least four billion euros in the economy and in future jobs. A new investment company would manage the money and earn its own profits. The platform cites the US Inflation Reduction Act as a model.

The SPD wants a new fund for Saxony. It is called Sachsenfonds 2050. The state should invest at least four billion euros from it. The money should go to companies and new jobs. A state-owned company should manage the money.

The fund is meant to drive the transformation of the economy through public investment. The SPD wants to found an investment company that uses money from the fund. This company would earn its own income, for example from fees for the use of grid infrastructure or by buying stakes in companies. The profits would be reinvested. Saxony's solar industry would also receive support from the fund.

The SPD wants to strengthen Saxony as a location for microelectronics, artificial intelligence and other future technologies. Around 100,000 people are to work in the Silicon Saxony chip cluster by 2030. The state's AI strategy would be developed further and research expanded.

The SPD wants more modern technology in Saxony. This includes computer chips and artificial intelligence. By 2030, about 100,000 people should work in the chip industry. The state should do more research on artificial intelligence. Developers of such programs should follow rules on openness.

The platform justifies support for microelectronics by saying it secures supply chains and makes Europe more independent. On AI, the SPD wants better conditions for skilled workers, start-ups, companies and public administration. State and local authorities are to offer more data and make it available through programming interfaces. Transparency requirements for AI developers are meant to limit risks. The SPD also wants to promote Saxony as a location for hydrogen, battery storage, aerospace, new materials and life sciences by linking companies and research.

The SPD wants to actively steer the transformation of Saxony's industrial regions. Lusatia is to become a center for renewable energy, and the Central German coal district a core of the green hydrogen economy. A transformation council of politics, science, business and unions would agree on the path.

The SPD wants to guide the change of industry in Saxony. Lusatia should become a center for clean energy. The Central German coal district should produce green hydrogen. That is a gas made with green power. A new council should give advice on the change.

In southwestern Saxony, car plants, suppliers, research and training are to work together more closely. Besides the planned hydrogen core network, the SPD wants to expand the distribution network to connect southwestern Saxony, the Meissen industrial belt, Dresden and Lusatia, among others. The EU's Just Transition Fund should continue, with faster and more flexible approval of its funds. The SPD wants to review all structural funding tools in dialogue with those affected and with local governments, then realign them by social, innovative and sustainable criteria. Small and mid-sized firms would get special support for training their employees.

The SPD wants to create a small team that reviews rules and procedures across all ministries and simplifies them substantially. It considers blanket rules such as sunset clauses for laws to be of little use.

The SPD wants less red tape. A small team should check the rules in all ministries. It should make the rules much simpler.

The platform rejects blanket approaches such as time-limited laws or the "one in, one out" rule as barely helpful. Instead, a team is to rework individual legal and procedural rules in detail across all departments. For companies settling in Saxony, the SPD also wants faster and less bureaucratic procedures.

The SPD wants to build a campus for young companies, paid for jointly by the state and the private sector. Start-ups are to get more funding, including beyond the founding stage, and work more closely with established industrial firms.

The SPD wants to give new companies more support. A campus for young companies should be built. The state and businesses should pay for it together. New companies should also get money after they have started.

Existing networks, aid and funds for founders are to continue. The planned campus is to offer dedicated support for women founders and for founders from socially disadvantaged families. Private venture capital investors and business angels are to be brought in more actively as partners. The SPD wants to expand the futureSAX network and set up a foundation through which private investors can help finance innovation.

The SPD wants a new, low-bureaucracy procurement law that ties public contracts to compliance with collective wage agreements and to social and environmental criteria. At the same time, as many contracts as possible should go to companies in Saxony, especially small and medium-sized ones.

The state gives contracts to companies. The SPD wants a new law for this. Companies should pay union-agreed wages. Environmental and social issues should count too. Many contracts should go to companies from Saxony.

Public bodies are to set an example for the principle of "good work" through their contracts. Splitting contracts into smaller lots is to be strengthened so that regional small and medium-sized firms can win them. The SPD wants to build incentives for higher collective-bargaining coverage into suitable business funding programs. The "Ab in die Mitte" program for town centers and retail is to continue.