Belgium
Bordered by France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Germany, with Great Britain close by, Belgium lies at the heart of a market of some 400 million customers. London, Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt are within 200 miles (322 km) of Brussels, Belgium's capital city. The country is a federal state with three Regions: Flanders, Wallonia and the Brussels Capital Region.
Key strategic positioning with unlimited access is why Belgium has been chosen as the headquarters for the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and over 1,400 international non-governmental organizations.
Brussels International Airport at Zaventem offers excellent global air links and with Paris and Amsterdam within three hours drive all corners of the world are easily accessible. Regional airports include Bierset, Charleroi, Antwerp and Oostende. The high speed train means travel time to Paris of 1hr25 mins and less than 3 hours to London. Belgium’s telecommunications are state of the art and it is one of the most cabled countries in the world.
Key sectors include the service sector, automotive and logistics/distribution, with high tech clusters in biotechnology and aerospace.
Companies seeking locations for high technology manufacturing or assembly can count on a multilingual, skilled and highly productive labor force in Belgium. The country’s numerous highly developed research parks form a natural environment for the establishment of high-tech companies.
Investment Promotion Agency:
Mrs Colette Vanstraelen
Service for Foreign Investors
Ministry of Economic Affairs
60 Rue General Leman
Brussels
1040
Belgium
tel: +32 (0) 2 206 58 64
fax: +32 (0) 2 514 03 89
Financial crisis 2008- Fiscal crisis 2010:
"Belgium, with its big banks and huge public debt" http://www.economist.com/node/12851352
Places in Belgium:
Flanders
Flanders offers businesses a uniquely central location in the New Europe. It is a region at the hub of European trade and the heart of European decision-making.
Flanders is well-served for air cargo and travel, with Brussels International Airport (Zaventem) both a cargo hub and an increasingly important passenger facility. Two smaller airports provide back-up: Ostend for international cargo and Antwerp for short-haul inter-European passenger travel. Flanders is also on the European high-speed train network.
Most of the population is multilingual, speaking English, French and often German, in addition to their own language of Dutch. The education system in Flanders has an excellent reputation, with per capita spending much higher than the European Union average.
Significant investors include Alcatel Microelectronics, Barco Silex, BASF, Bridgestone/Firestone, Ford, General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, Intel, Nippon Shokubai, Pharming, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Staples, Volvo and Vasco Data Security.
There are also a number of research institutes in Flanders including the the Flemish Institute for Technological Research, IMEC (the largest independent micro-electronics center in Europe) and the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology.
The clustering of high-tech companies and researchers in R&D parks further stimulates Flemish research and development. Leading scientific centers include, for example, Flanders Language Valley at Ypres (created by Lernout & Hauspie) and the six designated R&D areas. An added service provided by these R&D parks are their Incubation and Innovation centers, which assist high-tech and research-oriented companies to develop their activities. The centers are in Gent, Mechelen, Hasselt, Leuven, Brussels, Kortrijk and Antwerp.
Investment Promotion Agency:
Flanders Foreign Investment Office
Regentlaan 40
Brussels
1000
Belgium
tel: +32 (0) 2 227 5311
fax: +32 (0) 2 227 5310
Antwerp
Antwerp is the main city of the Flanders region in the northern part of Belgium. It has a solid transport infrastructure with an airport, road network and is home to the world’s 4th largest port based on cargo traffic. As well as the local airport at Deurne, Zaventem, the main international airport is located to the north east of Brussels and can easily be reached by highway and railway from Antwerp city center in just over half an hour. Antwerp has for centuries been a hub of trade and culture.
It is now part of rapid growing research region in Flanders. Antwerp’s major traditional sectors are petrochemicals (the world’s second largest production hub after the greater Houston area) and transport/logistics. However in 1998/99, out of the 170 overseas companies that moved into the Flanders region, 22% were from the IT sector, 14% chemicals and 10% life sciences.
Investors in the port region include Exxon, Monsanto, BASF, Bayer, GM’s Opel subsidiary, Kuraray and Nippon Shokubai.
A highly skilled workforce can be accessed in the city with graduates from the University base. The individual universities have started a process which will produce a University of Antwerp covering a wide range of faculties.
Investment Promotion Agency:
Flanders Foreign Investment Office
Regentlaan 40
Brussels
1000
Belgium
tel: +32 (0) 2 227 53 11
fax: +32 (0) 2 227 53 10
Leuven
The city of Leuven is the capital of the province of Flemish-Brabant. The city is home to an internationally renowned University
Ghent
Ghent is the capital of East Flanders in Belgium in north western Europe. Its situation at the intersection of main national motorways means that it can be easily reached by car. There are two train stations with connections to Eurostar and the Paris high speed train. The national airport, Zaventem, is located close by. Travel to France, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland and the former Eastern bloc is facilitated by these rail, road and air links.
There is a cluster of high-tech companies in the south of the city and a technology park in Zwijnaarde which houses the ‘biotech valley’, made up of companies specialist in the biomedical sector. The services sector is also important in the region with a number of large banks and insurance houses.
There are 300 education institutes in the area including the University of Ghent with 22,350 students. The university is particularly strong in applied sciences and speciality fields. It is the only Belgian university offering a full degree in textiles and biotechnology.
Wallonia
Wallonia occupies more than one-half of Belgium and is relatively densely populated with 3,300,000 inhabitants. The main economic centers in the region are Liège, Charleroi and Namur.
All of these areas have diversified from their traditional manufacturing base to specialize in highly technical and sophisticated sectors. Liège is developing activities linked to space exploration, software, telecommunications and new materials and Charleroi is a center of the aeronautics, computer graphics and petrochemical industries. Just outside of Namur a science park, linked to university faculties in Namur and the Agricultural Science Faculty of Gembloux, has been developed specifically for companies in the vegetal and agro-food biotechnology sectors.
The region is home to 9 university centers including the Universities of Namur and Hainaut.
Investment Promotion Agency:
Mr Jean-Pierre Marcelle
Communications manager
Office for Foreign Investors
Avenue Materne 115/117
Namur
5100
Belgium
tel: +32 (0) 81 33 28 50
fax: +32 (0) 81 33 28 69
Namur
Namur is the capital of Wallonia in Belgium. It has a population of 3.5 million inhabitants and lies in the heart of Europe with most major European cities accessible by road, rail or air.
Namur focuses on the three key sectors of the environment, agri-foodstuffs and information technologies.
Siemens Nixdorf has been conducting software research in Namur for 25 years. The company was originally attracted by the local University, which was the first in Belgium to train computer scientists.
Other companies with operations in the area are Furon, Air Products, Hach Europe, Ciset, Canon, Intermarché, Arthur Andersen and Smithkline Beecham Biologicals.
More than 6,000 students attend the two universities in Namur and Gembloux. In Namur, the Notre-Dame de la Paix University Faculties (FUNDP) and the Gembloux University Faculty of Agronomy (FUAGx) which is focused on training 'engineers of life sciences': in the fields of chemistry, agronomy, food, bio-industry, environment and biotechnology. A third of its students come from abroad. As a result of the universities,120 research centers and units have been established in the region, ensuring that Namur retains its place as a location for high-tech, research-based investors.
Liege
Liege is located in Belgium and is the meeting point for several major international highways. Connections to Antwerp, France, Germany and Holland are possible by road. Liege is the third largest river port in Europe and is a stopping point for TGV, the high speed train. For overseas travel, the Brussels International Airport is only 59 miles away, offering flights to worldwide destinations and the Cologne/Bonn airport (77 miles from Liege) has flights into Germany and Scandinavia. The airport in Liege itself is the first European airport to give full priority to cargo, rather than passenger freight.
The economic structure of the province of Liege is diversified with the service sector playing a particularly prominent role. Transport and communication, banks and insurance companies and other market services represent a large part of the local economy.
Boehringer Ingelheim, Fiat, Hitachi and Owens Corning all have their European distribution center in the province of Liege. Staples, Mac Valves, Marine Power and Copeland are a few examples of the US companies that chose to locate their European distribution and manufacturing facility in the area.
The region is home to the University of Liege which has approximately 2,000 researchers and 17,000 students.
The Sart Tilman science park, on the university campus, houses some 40 SMEs in the high technology field that closely cooperate with the university for research in aeronautics, human health, animal health, and optics. The Walloon Center for Biotechnology has also been created by the University of Liege.
Brussels
Often regarded as Europe’s capital, the Brussels Region has just under a million inhabitants, of which 30 per cent are non-Belgians, creating a truly cosmopolitan city-region. As the headquarters of several international institutions, the region is one of Europe’s most important political and business centers. Institutions of the European Union such as the European Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament are located in the city as well as the headquarters of NATO.
Brussels has excellent transport links with nine motorways connecting the region with several European cities; a direct fast rail connection with Paris, London, Amsterdam, Lille, Cologne and Frankfurt and the National Airport, which can be reached in 20 minutes by car from the center.
Brussels has become a technology capital, in part due to the presence of four research parks, vigorous collaboration between the Brussels universities and the business world and the technological dynamism of many small and middle-sized companies.
In Brussels, the financial sector is well represented with banks, insurance companies, leasing companies, investment funds and some 65 foreign banks which have their offices in the region. Brussels is also home to EASDAQ, Euroclear, Vanguard and the Brussels Stock Exchange.
One of the growing sectors in the region is the call center sector. The multilingualism of the Brussels workforce is one of the key assets of the region.
Investment Promotion Agency:
Mrs A Isaac
BRDA
rue Gabrielle Petit 6
Brussels
1080
Belgium
tel: +32 (0) 2 422 51 27
fax: +32 (0) 2 422 51 48
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