tasks and has as the only regional association in Baden-Württemberg a directly elected parliament. The regional assembly of the Verband Region Stuttgart is elected every five years. Further association bodies besides the regional assembly are the honorary chairman elected by the assembly out of its members for 5 years and the regional director elected for 8 years who is temporary full-time public official. The regional director represents the association and leads the Administration. His office is located in the associations office in Stuttgart. The association additionally has an office in Brussels. The Budget of the VRS for 2016 was 389 million Euro (2015: 323 million Euro). Tasks Important compulsory tasks of the VRS are amongst others: regional spatial planning (regional planning) regional transportation planning and public transport regional economic promotion Spatial Planning The VRS is the representative for the regional spatial planning (regional planning). Most important tool herefore is the regional plan according to § 9 ROG. This plan names the following central places. Transport The VRS is responsible for the regional transport planning and the regional significant local public transport. In the regional transport plan it makes forecasts of the traffic development for longer periods of time and names and evaluates urgent measures to cope with traffic. The VRS is sponsor of the S-Bahn Stuttgart and stakeholder of the Verkehrs- und Tarifverbund Stuttgart (VVS). Moreover, he co-finances Stuttgart 21. Out of the 323 million Euro in the budget of 2015, 300.4 million Euro went to the transport budget. Of those, 80.5 Million Euro was for the operation of the S-Bahn, the Schuster and the small Teckbahn. According to a financing agreement the VRS receives for the S-Bahn Stuttgart 9,1 % of the states regionalization budget from 2018 until 2031, 88 million Euro in 2018. Economic promotion In order to exercise as required by law, the regionally important task of economic promotion, the VRS founded together with other Stakeholders the die Wirtschaftsförderung Region Stuttgart GmbH (in 1995). Besides the recruitment and the guidance of companies which want to locate in the Stuttgart Region (Exogenic economic promotion) the about 50 employees of WRS consult and assist within the scope of site development already locally based companies (endogenous economic promotion). Besides the classical economic promotion in the narrower sense (e.g. through the marketing of industry sites, guidance of investors at their search for a location as well as location marketing) one focus