The meteoric rise of the Mainz vaccine manufacturer BioNTech is causing an unprecedented rain of money in the city. Instead of a budget deficit of 36 million euros, the superiors of the Rhineland-Palatinate state capital are expecting a surplus of no less than one billion and ninety million euros for this year alone. Next year it should be almost half a billion euros again. "This offers Mainz a historic opportunity," says Mayor Michael Ebling (SPD). For the Green Finance Mayor Günter Beck, the new starting position is simply "historic". The city does not state the exact share of BioNTech business taxes, but it is likely to be almost twice as high as the total business tax revenue of all Mainz companies.Thanks to the success of its Covid vaccine, BioNTech earned 3.9 billion euros in the first half of the year alone.
Bernd Freytag
Business correspondent Rhein-Neckar-Saar based in Mainz.
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According to their own admission, Mainz city councilors want to use the money wisely, pay off debts and turn Mainz from the world's pharmacy to a globally recognized location for biotech companies, to a “biotech hub”, as they say in an interview with the FAZ.
The two have already looked out thirty hectares of potential space: a network of biotech companies is to be created on it - in cooperation with the university, the university clinic and the research facilities already located there.
The city intends to invest one billion euros in the next ten years to create up to 5,000 new jobs, says Ebling.
His aim is to use the momentum.
BioNTech made Mainz visible in the world.
Hardly a corner from which no journalist has reported.
Mainz as a new biotech center
The "golden wish lists", which will now also arrive at the town hall from many parts of the city without question, wants to "first drag back the finance department". Instead, the debt should be reduced. In his words, the city wants to use the BioNTech money to repay all cash advances totaling 634 million euros by 2022, thereby creating completely new investment opportunities. You can set up the city's pension fund again and consider building administrative buildings at your own expense and no longer leasing them across the city. That also saves money in the long run. The debate about who gets how much money and when is only just about to begin. The city council has not yet approved the mayor's plans.
Part of the money should go to the company.
With a swipe at the neighboring rich Ingelheim, the headquarters of the pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim, Beck announced that the trade tax multiplier would be significantly reduced to that of Ingelheim.
This would relieve the Mainz companies by 350 million euros in the coming year.
In addition, the lower tax rate is intended to further improve the framework conditions for new biotech companies.
Mainz will do everything to attract more companies and use the money to create a good foundation for the future, said Beck.
The city estimates that around a hundred companies could relocate to the “Biotech Mainz Network” in the next ten years.
BioNTech continues to invest
Mainz does not want to be permanently dependent on BioNTech, that is also part of the new strategy. The business taxes should be spread over more and new shoulders. Cases in which the budget of a city is essentially dependent on a company are still in abundance today, some companies even have the location in their name, such as Boehringer Ingelheim or B. Braun Melsungen. Sindelfingen once even laid zebra crossings made of Carrara marble in the exuberance of Daimler's industrial millions.
The dependency on BioNTech is clear to everyone involved, on the other hand, "we are experiencing a very resilient commitment," as Ebling said.
In this case, commitment means: The BioNTech founders, the married couple Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci, have decided to continue investing in Mainz.
In fact, according to the city, all three locations are currently under construction.
The company currently employs around 1,500 people, and another 500 positions are advertised.
A former barracks right next to the head office at the now well-known address “An der Goldgrube” is also planned as an expansion area for BioNTech.
A city that changes the world
If the city actually repays its debts as planned, it can also free itself from the unloved leash of the Trier service supervisory authority ADD. To date, the supervision has to approve the budget of the heavily indebted city, which has repeatedly led to disputes. In the summer, the authority completely overturned the 2022 budget, calling for further savings and an increase in property tax.
With the BioNTech millions, the city's situation could now fundamentally change.
Ebling assumes that the mRNA technology co-devised by BioNTech and essential for the new vaccine could change the world just like the art of printing, which was finally also developed in Mainz, by Johannes Gutenberg.
In any case, for the first, the fun is back in the Mardi Gras stronghold of Mainz.
"The household," says Ebling, "has never been so much fun."