Wallonia has been rated fifth in the TOP 25 for Europe's most attractive regions and cities in terms of investment, after London, Flanders, Paris and Leipzig. For regions alone, it is still fifth after Scotland, Flanders again, Northern Ireland and Kent.

Brussels (L'Echo) - This annual review of the best-performing countries and regions for economic development and the most attractive ones for foreign investors comes from the March issue of fDI Magazine. A subsidiary of the Financial Times, fDI Magazine specialises in the promotion of countries, regions and cities and the location of foreign investments.

According to Jean-Claude Marcourt, the Walloon Minister of the Economy, these ratings owe a lot to the Google effect (Google has chosen Wallonia for the development of a major data storage centre at Ghlin). The selection was based on a thousand in-depth questionnaires sent out to economic operators, and prepared on the basis of those criteria that are generally decisive when companies are looking to set up businesses in new countries. A panel of ten specialist consultants listed and ranked the participants.

Among the cities, Brussels is 9th and Anvers 48th.
Brussels is also 5th for infrastructure and 9th for quality of life and human resources.

L’ECHO - 22/02/2008