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 Portland is a manufacturing and commerce hub in the Pacific Northwest. High-technology expansion, which helped offset a decade of decline in the timber industry, is a major reason for the Portland area's recent economic growth.
Bioscience - "targeted" to diversify the economy of Portland and the Willamette Valley - is growing in significance. Transportation, tourism and wholesale and retail trade are the other key segments of Portland's economic base.
More than 1,300 manufacturing companies are located in Portland. The five largest are Intel Corporation, Freightliner Corporation, which builds heavy duty trucks, Nike, Inc., Precisions Castparts Corporation, which makes aerospace castings, and Consolidated Freightways, Inc.
Portland has a stable work force of almost 600,000 persons, with a per capita income $25,500. The cost of living is lower than in any other major city along the Pacific Coast - and one of the lowest among all cities in the west. An added advantage is the absence of a retail sales tax in Oregon.
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