1s92016 CGroringen- Wikipedia, the ree encylopedia ‘The Aa Church (2004) = FS Graz, Austria” . = B= Holland, Michigan, . United States = San Carlos, Rio San Juan, Nicaragua =H Tallinn, Estonia = i Tianjin, China Des Zin, Czech Republic = ES Jabali, Palestine . = gay Kaliningrad, Russial!°) "ge Katowice, Poland = mmm Murmansk, Russia = BE Newcastk-Upon- Tyne, United Kingdom Politics ‘The city council has 39 members. With 9 seats, the social liberal D66 is the largest party on the council. The social- democratic PvdA has 6 seats, as does the Socialist Party. The centre-right VVD has 3 seats. GroenLinks holds 4 seats, and the local party Stadsparti 2 seats, The CDA and CiristenUnie are represented by 3 and 2 councilors, respectively. The Students and City (Student en Stad) holds 2 seats, and the Party for the Animals and 100% Groningen both hold one seat.{"1] The Aa Church by night (2009) Economy Until recently, two large sugar refineries were inside the city boundaries. The Suiker Unie plant was originally outside Groningen, but it was completely swallowed by the expansion of the city. Affer a campaign to close the factory, it was finally shut down in 2008/2009. Before closing down, the sugar production amounted to 250,000 tonnes of beet sugar, with 250 employees (2005 figures). The only remaining sugar factory is CSM Vierverlaten in Hoogkerk, which produces 235,000 tonnes of beet sugar, with 283 employees. ‘Nowadays, well known companies from Groningen are a publishing company Noordhoff, a tobacco company Royal ‘Theodorus Niemeyer, a health insurance company Menzis, a distillery Hooghoudt and the natural gas companies GasUnie and GasTerra. There is an increased focus on business services; specifically ICT, Life Sciences, Tourism, epssin kpc. org iiGroningen ane