Commentary: Saxony Wakes From Its Slumber

A blur of Porsche Carrera GTs scream around a racetrack outside Leipzig. In a factory adjacent to the track, engineers craft the superluxury Carrera GT sports cars and powerful Cayenne sport-utility vehicles. The site -- a $151 million investment by Porsche that includes a hilly nature preserve for test-driving SUVs -- is testimony of an industrial revival in a once-bankrupt eastern Germany.

Porsche is one of thousands of European, North American, and Asian companies that have set up shop in the state of Saxony since the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Lured by the combination of government subsidies and an ample pool of skilled workers, companies have poured $47 billion since 1990 into factories that turn out everything from semiconductors to airplane parts. State officials reckon that a total of 220,000 new jobs have been created and another 220,000 have been preserved as a result of this wave of investment. International exports, meanwhile, have grown sixfold, to $15.4 billion.